Bad argument

Tim Robbins

Sometimes I wonder what are more annoying. Bad religious arguments or bad political arguments. There were tonnes of bad arguments around the Lisbon treaty, particularly from the No camp.

Now I'm hearing from the public sector:
"we didn't cause the recession so we should be immune from any cut backs".

This is an appauling argument.

1. We are borrowing approx 40 million a day. Do they think this is sustainable?
2. Even if every single snip from an bord snip nua is implemented they have still got off lightly compared to the private sector. For example, let's say there were 17,000 redundancies. This would mean you have about a 95% chance of keeping your job. Far higher than anything in the private sector.
3. Even if they didn't cause it, why would not causing it mean they have immunity from any cut backs?

Your thoughts...

Sam Vimes

They also said that if they took a large cut that money would be taken out of the economy and they couldn't spend it to keep businesses going and their solution was that tax should be increased instead.


They didn't quite grasp that whether they took €100 off them or €50 of me and €50 off them, exactly the same €100 would be taken out of the economy

dvpower

Not sure that this has anything to do with Atheism/Agnosticism but...


The argument that 'we didn't cause the problem, so we shouldn't have to pay for it' seems flawed. It implies that life is fair (or should be fair); that we should enforce some kind of karma.

In truth, we basically can't afford the public services that we have and we need to cut back. If you can't sell your widgets, then you can't pay your widget makers.

Tim Robbins

dvpower wrote: »

Not sure that this has anything to do with Atheism/Agnosticism but...

We have had occasionaly discussions about Lisbon, politics in the forum before on the basis that it gives people who usually frequent a chance to air their views.

Dades

Sam Vimes wrote: »

They also said that if they took a large cut that money would be taken out of the economy and they couldn't spend it to keep businesses going and their solution was that tax should be increased instead.

Did I read somewhere recently that 20% of the population pay 80% of the revenue take? Or was that something somebody made up on the spot...

It annoys me to hear the public sector shouting about how it wasn't them that screwed up the economy - as if it was the entire private sector responsible. The fact is it was the actions of a very small percentage of 'private sector' people coupled with the global economy that put us where we are.

I say this as someone whose wife works in the public sector.

sink

All I know is that arguing with certain hardcore Lisbon NO voters is akin to arguing with creationists.

dvpower

Dades wrote: »

Did I read somewhere recently that 20% of the population pay 80% of the revenue take? Or was that something somebody made up on the spot...

Doesn't sound quite right. Maybe under some taxhead or another.

Dades wrote: »

It annoys me to hear the public sector shouting about how it wasn't them that screwed up the economy - as if it was the entire private sector responsible. The fact is it was the actions of a very small percentage of 'private sector' people coupled with the global economy that put us where we are.

I don't know why there is a fascination with identifying those who are responsible. The key question is what can we do about it (we clearly can't make the 'responsible ones' clean up the mess), so the problem remain with public services. We can't afford them; we need to cut them or pay more taxes (or both).

Tim Robbins

sink wrote: »

All I know is that arguing with certain hardcore Lisbon NO voters is akin to arguing with creationists.

They're very similar alright. They haven't a clue about EU politics in general. Couldn't tell you the difference between the council, the commision and the parliament. But they are adamant they are right. They just have a belief in their head and it's not going to be exposed to any sort of rational examination whatsoever.

The question is how about those public sector "we didn't cause this problem so we shouldn't be punished" how close are they on the fool spectrum?

Hivemind187

Frankly we should sack everyone in the public sector. Myself included ...

... my reasoning is that I left the Department of Education 2 years ago. I worked for a private company afterwards. I have been unemployed since July 2008.

According to my tax cert received today, I still work for the DES. Makes me a little suspicious of the "17000" to lose their jobs.

Can I haz redundancy package plz?

robindch

Dades wrote: »

Did I read somewhere recently that 20% of the population pay 80% of the revenue take?

For PAYE, which accounts for around 25% of the national tax take, that's almost exactly right.

I'm sure there are stats for last year around the place somewhere, but according to this page on the Revenue's website, in 2006, the top 20% of PAYE workers (that's everybody earning over €50k) pay 78% of the take, while the lowest 50% (everybody earning less than €25k) pay 2.3%.

I'd imagine it's similar in most other countries, but the reality of PAYE taxation in Ireland is that high earners make a contribution to the public purse which is completely out of proportion to their numbers.

Tim Robbins

robindch wrote: »

I'd imagine it's similar in most other countries, but the reality of PAYE taxation in Ireland is that high earners make a contribution to the public purse which is completely out of proportion to their numbers.

Yes and I think there's nothing wrong with that. For starters, people on high income were usually given very good educations paid for mostly by the state. For example, a Doctor's education costs the state a lot more than a sparky's education who left school at 15 to do an apprenticeship.

Secondly, the only way anyone can make a high income is if there is some sort of stability in the state. For example, there are jails, courts, schools etc.

Rich people cannot just make this money on their own. They necessitate a stable state for which they should pay a larger proportion of tax as they are benefitting more from the fact it is stable than someone who is on average industrial wage.

Personally, I think all Irish wages (public and private) should be moving towards EU averages. That's the economic zone we are competing with.