Poll: Will this Dáil see a full term? - Support for FF falls 15% (Joe Behan Resigns from the Party)

Well, if we're taking an opinion poll, I think he done a fairly shite job. Empty platitudes given out last year about the health of the economy and the banking sector which have been rubbished by empirical evidence. Shenanigans coming to the light of day about how Anglo was nationalised. Panic in issuing the blanket gaurantee and then saying it will cost the tax payer nothing. The perpetual dithering over recapitalisation. Ah, the list extends beyond my desire to write about it.

The best thing to come out of the entire mess is that FF is finally spooked. The polls and rallies have unnerved the govt and the golden circles. They appear to be turning on each other. How this plays out over time, one can only surmise. While hope springs eternal, I'm always reminded by a saying that has been attributed to Harney - something about the electorate having very short memories. If the heat lets up, will things just return to the cosy auld ways? Stay tuned.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

The polls show that whilst FF support has been decimated large swathes of the public support the measures taken by the government to fight the crisis. That includes the levy.

At this stage, even some FF TDs aren't standing over the Cabinets economic and fiscal approach. It appears strongly to me that Cowen and Lenihan are totally out of their depth and relying on insufficiently expert advice (to say the very least). The lack of comprehension of the levy proposal by Cowen is a clear indication of that. Clinch and Bacon have expertise, I have worked with both, but not in government, finance or budget management. I find it horrifying to see that they were thought of as appropriate advisers in the situation we are in. To me, this is a further piece of evidence that neither Government, nor the senior civil servants concerned, have a grasp of what is required.

They are doing too little, to late. It is both unfair and incoherent. They have forced people into the position in which strike action is their only option. I don't see any evidence that there is a consensus supporting "the measures taken by government" - individual measures may have support, but the whole package is acknowledged by most people as being a shambles, that disproportionately hits people who can less afford to take the hit.

Now Martin Mansergh is threatening us with the IMF/EU. We are supposed to accept the mess on the grounds that it will prevent effective default and economic takeover by the EU or IMF. So desperate are people getting that we have Sarah Carey saying she would prefer the IMF to the current government. Profoundly stupid, borderline treasonable, but under the circumstances, understandable.

Rants aside, I have been more impressed by Lenihan than by any of the other finance spokespersons.

We would all love to have a government that could predict the future and could have announced measures to save us months ago. However, the global situation has deteriorated severely week by week since the start of the year. Furthermore, we have been buffeted by a plethora of scandals which has affected our international standing and it looks like there could be more to come. Curcumstances have not allowed him to deliver all the bad news at once or to deliver a proportionate recovery plan early in the day.

I keep hearing "protect the vulnerable", "the levy is unfair", "the public sector needs to lay off loads of staff", "public sector pensions are too big", "everybody needs to share the pain", "the cheek of you to charge me college fees", "tax the rich", "tax those who are unaffected by the recession", "lynch the bankers", "the developers got all the money", "I never got nothing out of the boom". It all amounts to the same thing - NIMBY + selfish + Platitudes + cognitive dissonance. Time will change it form there being lip-service about taking the pain to there being a genuine willingness to take the pain. In the meantime I will only be skim reading the rants.

Quote :

"everybody needs to share the pain"

was in there somewhere.

Did you hear the Swedish guy this morning - they took 5% of spending and pur 4% on tax: the pain was spread in proportion to peoples' ability to pay. The finance minister put his job on the line.
Everyone understood what was being done and why and they straightened out their problem in three years.

This is a more serious situation, but the same principles apply

It was Brian Cowen who undertook to protect the vulnerable.

The higly paid are paying more tax. They are paying a higher tax levy, they are paying at a higher tax rate, they are paying a higher pension levy in the public service. Who is spreading the myth that the higher paid are not paying a greater proportion than the lower paid?

I feel sorry for lower paid workers but we don't have enough high earners to get us out of this without middle and lower income earners contributing too. They are the cold facts. Eamonn Gilmore can talk about the "vulnerable" until the cows come home. It sounds great but if the maths don't add up there will be no f_cking money for anyone. How will we look after the vulnerable then???

Also, I might as well come clean. I never agreed with people earning money being removed from the tax net altogether in the first place. I heard Mary Coughlan saying on the radio that it had been a good FF policy. I think it was a bad FF policy. I think low earners should have paid a little if not a lot while things were going well. The mental attitude that one should not have to pay any tax is unhealthy.

Quote :

Mr Cowen has stated he is "determined to protect the most vulnerable in our society and will redirect resources to that end",

People were let out of the tax net because their wages were so low that they were better off on welfare than working.

Ah come on, that does not explain the full extent of people who were removed form the tax net. Are you telling me people are opting on to the Dole now???? Also, you can only help the vulnerable with the money available to you.

When FF sloshed all the boom money into health and education and welfare and old age pensions they were just looking for votes and when they say they can't afford as much now and the main focus has to be employment, then they are vampires, because we all know that FF politicians and Green politicians are evil people. As for the help that has not been cut and for the support that remains in place, they should get no credit for that because, like we all agree, they are just evil.

The motives and callousness being ascribed to politicians is for the most part the product of the imagination of those who don't like them. A lot of them may not be braniacs or may be selfish but this pervasive disregard of the public in the political classes is a myth. An individual could not mentally function as a politician from day to day if they had such antipathy towards the human race.

cactus flower wrote:

Did you hear the Swedish guy this morning - they took 5% of spending and pur 4% on tax: the pain was spread in proportion to peoples' ability to pay.

The government here will be cutting spending by a lot more than 5% and raising tax by a lot more than 4%.
Govt spending was cut by 3% in the last budget, cut further with the pension levy, and no doubt will be cut further in the next budget.
Sweden also devalued, didn't it?

eoinmn wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Did you hear the Swedish guy this morning - they took 5% of spending and pur 4% on tax: the pain was spread in proportion to peoples' ability to pay.

The government here will be cutting spending by a lot more than 5% and raising tax by a lot more than 4%.
Govt spending was cut by 3% in the last budget, cut further with the pension levy, and no doubt will be cut further in the next budget.
Sweden also devalued, didn't it?

cf

Quote :

This is a more serious situation, but the same principles apply

The point was that the package was integrated and accepted as equitable. Also that the Finance Minister said that if it was not accepted he would go. He is PM now.

cactus flower wrote:

This is a more serious situation, but the same principles apply

Sorry, I missed that.

cactus flower wrote:

The point was that the package was integrated and accepted as equitable. Also that the Finance Minister said that if it was not accepted he would go. He is PM now.

Here we have the social partnership model, there is no need for Lenihan to offer his head on a plate, but social partnership should be revived for the next round of public service pay cuts and possibly in the short term for tinkering with the existing pay levy, but it has to be accepted beforehand that cuts totalling 1.4bn (or whatever) will be made.