+1. There's a plan I could get behind. 1884 - A very small income tax was introduced. It was rarely enforced. 1915 - The Australian Federal government introduced additional income tax to finance the war effort. The war ended in 1918, the income tax did not! 1941 - Payroll tax introduced. 1970s - Income tax was overhauled to a graduated system. 1985 - Capital gains tax introduced 1990 - Debits Tax introduced. Payable on certain cash, cheque, ATM and EFTPOS withdrawals. 2000 - Goods and Services Tax introduced. Consumption tax of 10%. 2011 - Flood levy/tax introduced levied against individual income. 2012 - Carbon Tax introduced. It's only a matter of time before we will all be slaves if this ever-expanding government and taxation trend continues.
You should the video rbaggio posted http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-29648-the-coming-collapse-of-the-middle-class.html
You're right - Labor/Greens are a useless bunch of thieving/lying barstads and the "Libs" are not much better (although they are for certain better) - as they're socialists in free market clothing to a large degree. Nothing short of Ron Paul will do to free us from the shackles of the parasites in power
Well the idea of having to pay GST on a house is preposterous to begin with! Just like "stamp duty" - theft plain and simple.
You shouldn't let ideology blind you to circumstance Yippee. Good ideas and policies come from all sides.
The belief that State governments are the root of our economic and political troubles is misplaced. Federalism further removes the authority of the people creating vast geographical and ideological distances between those that govern and those that are governed. It is interesting to note that a number of States in the US are already preparing for the collapse of the Federation there, by introducing their own currency laws. The 20th Century is littered with a litany of big government failures throughout Europe, witness Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the USSR, the EEC yet there is very real pressure from the "big government boys", and support from the unenlightened or those that benefit for increasing centralisation of decision making. The World Bank, G20, United Nations and BIS are examples of this. By championing the abolition of State Parliaments, you champion the centralisation of authority and unwittingly support the the One World Government merchants.
I agree with you 100%. the only reason i support the suggestion of dismantling state governments is because it's just another level of government which steals money, so getting rid of it (any level of government) is a good thing to me. However, it would be even better to have dismantle much of the federal government and shrink it to a small fraction of what it is now - and let it be in charge of basically just defence. That way 90% of the fatcats in Canberra can be gotten rid of. Keep the state governments instead - and they can co-operate in a kind of confederation as opposed to a federation. State ogvernments can also be shrunk - but not done away with entirely. Same with local governments...
Yeah in QLD after 1000's of public sector jobs were/are being cut, the QLD govt are now lining up for a pay rise. How good of them. They really deserve it after a job well done I don't think it matters Labour / Liberal. Two heads of the same beast
+1. If you're going to cut back on one, take out the Federal Government. On a related point, Tom Woods pointed out that the states in the US have "nullification" powers. Essentially States can nullify any Federal Government policies they don't like. Unfortunately our State Governments don't have the same range of powers. Anyway, I believe he also made the point that despite the productivity loss due to the bickering/politicking he reckons that the overlapping fiefdoms reduces the encroachment of really big Government and helps the people because each level of government spends some of their time attacking each others stupid policies rather than having a coherent single entity that can systematically attack people's freedoms with little opposition.
I don't think state governments are the root cause of any economic or political problems, only that they were created many years ago when the world was a very different place and are now redundant. There isn't any huge ideological or cultural difference between people living in NSW to people living in South Australia or Tasmania or Victoria or anywhere else in the country (okay, people in NSW drink "schooners" and people in Victoria drink "pots" but somehow we still manage to get by). Just because have the opportunity to vote for a different bunch of clowns every three years to give them the opportunity of messing up some of the services I use in new and interesting ways doesn't mean I get more democracy for my dollar - I might get the illusion of choice but at the end of the day kids still need to learn how to read, write and do sums and sick people still need doctors to give them medicine. Simply from an administrative point of view, it isn't necessary to have three levels of government for a country with such a small population. It certainly isn't necessary to have multiple bureaucratic structures duplicating the exact same policies in areas like health and education. If there is a crunch coming in terms of what services we expect government to provide for us, we should be looking to eliminate wastage before increasing any taxes.
Unfortunately they are being made redundant. We live in an age of monopolies - and politics is not immune. There isn't but there is. In Australia, as in other geographically large countries, resentment of political decisions is directly proportional to the number of kilometres between those empowered ie the decision makers, and those subject to the decisions. True.
Feel free to lambast me if I'm way out of line, but isn't wanting state govt gone and encouraging federal govt - isn't that really encouraging central planning? Like communism? I'm not playing the troll, it just would seem that removing any level of independence in favour of centralised control is a move in that direction.
I guess it would depend on what model you were after. Eliminating state governments, enlarging local government and (hopefully) a reduced federal government is one option. Not sure if it would work but would at least remove a layer which is not a bad thing in my opinion. I do agree with you that stripping out state level and having a heavily enlarged federal level is so very far from ideal.
My point is that the states don't offer us any "independence". They simply act as middle management and consume resources (our tax dollars) to fund their bureaucracy that could be better spent providing services to the community. How is it that the state of Queensland manages to get by with only one house of parliament, yet everyone else needs two? Would anyone really notice if they got rid of the other one and just operated on the same basis as ACT and the Northern Territory? People in those places seem to manage okay with just two levels of government.
