Rowan Williams thinks high taxes are jolly fine.
Dr Rowan Williams said that taxation should not be seen as a way of stifling business or redistributing wealth but helping to make the world a better place in which to live.
He called for new levies to be introduced on financial transactions and carbon emissions, and an end to the idea that unlimited economic growth is desirable.
Oh, good grief! Has this man not heard of the Laffer curve? I am an example of the Laffer curve in action as I deliberately manage my workload to bring my overall profit under the marginal rate. Once I’ve reached that level, I stop working – I see no reason why I should pay more to the government than I absolutely have to.
My paying more tax merely reduces the amount of wealth I have to spend as I see fit. Letting the government have it to piss up the wall on fake charities, quangos and think tanks – or, worse, useless databases and ID cards most certainly will not make society better. A far better arrangement would be to dramatically reduce the tax intake so that government would have to concentrate on those services that matter, thereby making life better for us all by allowing us to keep more of our own money.
As for the risible idea of a Tobin tax; who does he think will pay it? Oh, yeah, that’s right, we will – along with income tax, VAT, national insurance and the various other taxes on goods such as tobacco, alcohol, fuel, cars et al. This isn’t free money sloshing about waiting for HMRI’s greedy claws to clutch at – it is our money that we go out to earn. Already we part with over half our income in tax and when we die the state comes along to take its final cut. We already pay far more in tax than we should, so for this “self confessed hairy lefty” to suggest that we pay more is worthy of utter, utter contempt. The man is a buffoon. It would be more appropriate for him to concentrate on all that God bothering and look after his flock, leaving the real world stuff to the rest of us.
The archbishop also claimed reality television gives us “alarming glimpses” of what the world would look like were everyone to be governed by self-interest.
Oh, bollocks! A few narcissistic twats on reality television is not representative of the rest of us, just as one bumbling buffoon is not representative of all God botherers. And self-interest is why people trade in the first place.
As part of this, the archbishop said: “We have to ask about ‘green taxes’ (including ‘green’ tax breaks) that will check environmental irresponsibility and build up resources to address the ecological crises that menace us.
“It is of course connected with other proposals about currency exchange taxation – the ‘Tobin tax’ idea: the point is that we should be thinking about taxation neither as an unreasonable burden on enterprise nor as a simple mechanism of redistribution but as a potentially sophisticated tool for long-term ‘economy’ – housekeeping.
“Taxation builds a habitat – already, quite properly, through state welfare provision, but potentially in other less familiar ways.”
Ah, yes, jump on the old green bandwagon – Marxism by any other name. If it moves, tax it. If it doesn’t, tax it anyway. Taxation at over half of our income is most certainly an unreasonable burden and taxation as a sophisticated tool is something clearly not noticed by the present profligate incumbents of Whitehall who see it as a means to fund whatever half-witted ideas float into their heads that morning. Taxation, far from building a habitat is taking money from those who have earned it and either giving it to those who haven’t or simply pouring it into the bottomless pits of quangos and fake charities.
There is nothing like having less money to play with to encourage thrift. Less tax take will concentrate the minds of those charged with spending it. Then, perhaps, we will see fewer government departments (why, for example do we have a department of culture?) and fewer jumped up special interest groups nagging and nannying us over what to eat, how much exercise to take and whether we drink or smoke or whatever the health scare du jour is.
Less is definitely more. And less of the Archbishop’s Marxist wibble would be a vast improvement. Actually, on that thought, merely less of the Archbishop would do just fine.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.