The only reason I pay a NZ Herald subscription – (WHICH JUST WENT UP FOR NO REASON LAST WEEK BTW) is to support Simon Wilson.
Why? Why are you confident? Because you shouldn’t be!
I don’t give a fuck about soccer or rugby and am only here as a mark of solidarity for Simon Wilson because the Mayor’s campaign against him is an odious mark on Auckland Politics and fuck Wayne Brown, but increasing the subscription based on your belief that your journalism is great?
Terrible blunder there.
You are not great. Hooton is funny and I love reading what his latest paying client thinks, but beyond him and Simon, you have tired right wing opinion writers selling shit sandwiches as sugar doughnuts.
Stop increasing your subscription for bullshit reasons you money grubbing price gouging pricks.
That said, I would pay more if you put Shaneel Lal behind a paywall.
Anyway.
Simon Wilson, from behind the paywall at the Herald, asks why aren’t we all talking about the Green Party tax policy…
Simon Wilson: Green Party’s poverty plan for Election 2023 – and the silence of the wolves
Why such a non-response? Could it really be true that none of them has anything of substance to say about a costed plan to end poverty?
Or is their silence merely because there is nothing they can say? Because to talk about it would be to acknowledge that the plan makes sense, and that’s the thing they fear the most?
So there they are, like wolves padding quietly around the edges of the field, waiting to tear the little Green lambs apart because they’re so innocent, they couldn’t possibly understand economics.
…Simon has taken the time to ask why the Green Party Tax policy isn’t being seriously debated and he deserves an answer.
And there are two reasons.
The first reason is because it’s just not enough.
Don’t get me wrong, the Green Party tax policy is a great first step, but it is only PART of the solution to the challenges we face.
They have set very low thresholds for the highest taxes in what is a very simplistic tax swap which does sweet fuck all to raise the money needed for our failing social and physical infrastructure let alone the radical adaption we need to fund for climate change.
Yes those under $125000 will be better off, good, but the reliance on a wealth tax to do ALL the heavy lifting here is simply delusional.
They want to raise $12billion from .7% of the population.
That’s a fuck of lot of cash to get from .7% of the population, and it’s a lot of cash that will simply go into other peoples pockets, which again is great, but doesn’t provide us with the necessary cash to build the new hospitals, the new schools, to employ more teachers, more drs, more police etc etc etc – NOT to mention the cost of climate change adaptation required as well!
A land tax (as proposed by TOP) means the wealthy can’t take their assets and leave.
A financial transaction tax (as proposed by MANA and Māori Party) would tax the speculators and provide the resources to build the broken social infrastructure we have.
A sugar tax can fund free dental.
Legalised Cannabis market would create $1.1billion per year that could be ringfenced for proper drug rehabilitation.
Windfall taxes can mitigate our obscene inequality.
A wealth tax is PART of the solution, but it simply can’t be the only solution because the whole thing will implode when it comes to getting that $12billion out of .7% of the population.
Great first step from the Greens, but we need a giant leap for Green kind.
The second reason no one is talking about it is because no one takes these Greens seriously.
They have some brilliant MPs, Chloe, Julie Anne and Golriz, but it’s not enough.
The Greens have gone down the identity politics rabbit hole and are simply no longer credible. They don’t have the intellectual muscle to pull a stunt like this off because their enemy isn’t free market capitalism, it’s heteronormative white cis males.
Their entire identity politics shtick is flakey as fuck, and you are asking them to reshape the tax system???
Come on.
If it’s a Free the nipple campaign for militant cycling mummy blogger trans ally vegans, the Green Party are fucking excellent!
If it’s leading some online cancel culture Lynch mob for crimes against woke dogma, the Green Party are fucking excellent!
If it’s rebuilding the infrastructure of the neoliberal economic hegemony however, the Greens couldn’t score wearing banana costumes at a monkey brothel.
This is the Greens now…
…this is the Greens now…
..this is the Greens now…
…this is the Greens now…
…this is the Greens now…
…in the words of the great Logan Roy…
That’s why no one is bothering with the Green Party Tax policy.
It doesn’t provide the increased revenue the State needs to build everything and no one believes they could manage even the little they have proposed.
I will continue to pay my Herald subscription, but there’s no fucking way I’m paying for Viva! Why the fuck does anyone at NZME think I will pay to hear where Jessie Mulligan eats dumplings on K Rd before hosting The Project?
Why would anyone pay for that?
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