Saturday, November 28, 2015

Back to the future in Irish political life


A FEW years back, the New York Times came up with the ideal person for the type of economy which governs the western world.
What kind of individual could maximise how he or she contributed to the consumer economy?
The result, when everything was considered, was a man suffering from cancer and going through a divorce.

Such an individual would be greasing a wagon load of consumer wheels. His illness would generate work in the health service, and possibly also require the services of a psychologist. He may be absent from work for an extended period which would provide work for a replacement. The productive replacement would then be in a position to make his or her contribution to consuming.
                                                                    Fr Sean Healy
On the divorce front, our friend would be engaging legal services, not to mention an estate agent to find him a new home. He would be spending on the acquisition of a property, or if not, on rent. That in turn would contribute to the property market.
So, such an individual, going through a deep trough in human experience, would be just the job for the economy — his life transformed into a highly productive economic unit. He might even get an award for his contribution to the economy, if he managed to live through his various travails.
The example came to mind last week when the headlines emerged that Fine Gael’s secret weapon for the forthcoming election is to abolish the USC for all taxpayers.

That’s the central plank of the agenda on the right of Irish politics. Pay less tax because tax is to be regarded as a burden that should be continually lightened until it might simply disappear. I have no doubt that some strategist somewhere is crunching numbers to see if there’s any way income tax can be abolished.
How cutting tax will lead to greater health, contentment, wellbeing, or even jobs below a relatively high benchmark is anyone’s guess. But, the main thing is that in the short term, it will convince voters that Fine Gael is contributing to their individual coffers.

Among most on the left of Irish politics, the forthcoming election will have as its central plank another plan to do away with a basic tenet in any developed society. Ireland came late to the novel idea that we should pay for finite resources like water. If it wasn’t for the haranguing of the blessed troika, we might not have come at all to join the rest of the world in declaring that water should be measured and paid for.

The main electoral plank on the left will be to abolish water charges. Standing on a platform to actually cut rather than add taxes is highly unusual in international left wing politics, but ours, after all, is a highly unusual political culture.
The parties involved have a perfect solution: Transfer the burden of paying for water to “the rich”. That strategy is guided by the principle that ”the rich” are unlikely to vote for left-wing parties and therefore there will be no electoral cost for imposing an extra charge on that sector.

That’s where we stand as a society emerging from an existential crisis. Nothing has changed. The election will be about the economy and precious little else. Cut taxes, even though this is not a high tax country compared to our European neighbours. Purport to be able to magic a European level of services for US rates of tax. Narrow the base. Put more money in people’s pockets to allow them function as good economic units in the economy. And before long, it’s back to the future.

There will be nothing of any substance aired in relation to quality of life; the long-term goals of a society; or wider issues such as the welfare of the environment. We are, to a huge extent, simply going back to the future as if the last eight years never occurred. Ramp it up and start again with the objective of somebody else footing the bill.

There will be uncosted promises about services and general welfare issues. One of the big promises last time around was Fine Gael’s universal health insurance. As per usual, the promise wasn’t costed, and it ultimately fell on that basis.

This time around, you can bet your bottom dollar that all parties will pay lip service to improving services and quality of life, eliminating homelessness, fixing the health service, and saving the planet from climate change.
These proposals will not be costed in any kind of realistic manner for the simple reason that to do so would be to tell voters that they will be required to contribute more through tax. And that notion is to modern day elections what the plague was to the middle-ages.
There are lonely voices out there willing to grasp this issue, but they might as well by crying in the wilderness.

The economist John Fitzgerald has noted that if people want better services, as they claim to do, then no form of tax cuts should be on the agenda.


Peter McVerry pointed out last week that if the USC was to be retained, the €4bn it generates annually would eliminate homelessness in five years. Everybody in politics nods their head at that conclusion, and then quietly draws up plans to eliminate the USC for those most likely to vote for them.

Earlier this week, the director of Social Justice Ireland, Fr Sean Healy, posed four questions that should be stapled inside every front door ahead of the forthcoming election. Speaking at his organisation’s annual social policy conference, Fr Healy said that the questions that must inform public policy are:
Where does Ireland was to be in 10-15 years?
How do we propose to get there?
How do we propose to pay for it?
How do we maintain a sustainable vibrant economy through that period?
These questions should be accompanied with a word of advice. If a canvasser responds that the answers lie in either abolishing the USC or water charges, please slam the door.
The questions offer a major challenge to the political classes in demanding a view of the long-term. It would also force politicians to persuade rather than pander. And for those reasons, there is little hope of the questions being asked at all.
Instead of drawing inspiration from figures like Healy, most politicians are likely to look at the man who was a first-class vote-getter in his prime — one Bartholemew Ahern.

My abiding recollection of the 2002 and 2007 general election campaigns is the appearance in the 24 hours or so before polling day of little green diamond-shaped posters. These were tied to lamp posts all over north Dublin and, I assume, throughout the country as well, and read: “Vote Fianna Fáil. Pay Less Tax”.
To the point and to the heart of voters’ instincts. And we all know where that one ended up.
Michael Clifford


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