Rudd has found the money he needs to get his $18b surplus. He's going to get it by renegging on tax cuts as I predicted only yesterday, but not the tax cuts he promised, he'll be axing tax-cuts by another name.
That other name is 'middle class welfare'. That sounds yucky doesn't it? Those aweful middle class people taking money that should go to poor people.
The purported target of the tax-cut-cuts is Family Tax Benefit B. It's currently not means tested, so relatively well-off parents can claim it. The plan is to introduce means testing and thereby avoid paying to people who earn more than a certain amount (probably not much) .
Rudd does not have the courage to say so himself, but has spread the rumour and allowed economic experts to speculate and defend the cuts ahead of time. Oddly enough the experts are the same group, ACCESS economics, quoted in the blog linked above. I wonder how much what their cut of the 'welfare' will be.
Notice how Howard called this payment Family Tax Benefit. That's because it's not welfare, it's giving tax back.
The problem with the term 'middle class welfare' is that the middle class earned the money in the first place, then had it taken away from them in tax. So-called 'Middle class welfare' was just John Howard's way of cutting tax to the people that earned it. As i've said before, welfare is giving money to people who have not earned it. Tax benefits are giving money back to the people who did earn it. Big difference.
But Labor talks about 'Middle class welfare' to make it sound like there is no difference. The money never belongs to you, it belongs to the government. If they let you have some of it you should be grateful, but if they choose to spend on poor people's welfare (either as direct welfare payments or in other ways which enhance their general 'welfare') then that's up to them. You are bad person if you claim to own your own money. All property is theft. You are acting in a selfish capitalist way, but the government acts on behalf of the community. This sounds not unlike like something Lenin would say with all his 'dictatorship of the proletariat' bollocks.
Whatever the spin, the upshot of means testing Family Tax Benefit B is that money will be taken off the middle class in ways that they were not told about before the election. I told you Rudd was hammering the inflation message hard for a reason. There will be a big backlash from mums and dads that were previously getting their tax back. Many middle class parents voted for Rudd because he banged the family drum and made them feel secure.
Rudd specifially targeted well-off middle class parents during the campaign with promises like tax-deductable child care. Tax-deductable child care is well known to benefit well off families more than poor ones.
Why should these families not get a tax break if they choose to stay home and look after their children? It's almost like Rudd wants parents to surrender their kids over to the new wave on indoctinated child-care workers in the first wave of the 'education revolution'. Almost? Who am i kidding? He's a Maoist commie and no foolin'
How many times did he say 'working families' during the compaign? Dont forget to add on the number of times the ACTU said it on their adds. A million times here, a billion times there and pretty soon you're talking real propaganda - all of it false it now becomes clear. Every one of the families he is taking money away from will have at least one member in work. Truth be told Rudd is looking after non-working families not working ones.
They've been conned by Rudd and they are about to get ripped-off by Rudd but I have to admit that at this point I don't have alot of sympathy for middle-class parents. Alot of them voted for Rudd because they fell for the spin i'm trying to expose. They are about to get what they deserve. This cut of the tax-benefit is just the start.
If you want to keep your money and defend the family unit, vote for a conservative. The conservatives are not in the ALP. It's pretty simple really. You'll know for next time, guys.
I accept that John Howard is partly to blame for this tax-cut-cut that will now take place, but only to the extent he was not conservative enough. If he simply cut tax and did not go all Nanny state and tie tax cuts to having to bear children first then he could have forced the ALP to admit a tax-increase was a tax-increase. This is my only regret about the Howard years: that we did not become a proper low-tax economy. He and Costello did the best they could at the end by slashing tax during the campaign and forcing Rudd to to the same, but Rudd is able to weazel out of some of it now. Still, Howard probably did everything that was politically possible. He started us on the low tax path and Rudd can't turn that juggernaut around, just slow it down.
