Yeah and I'm not necessarily opposed to company tax cuts like I would be for comparable income tax cuts - intuitively they make more sense (although having said that they've been a disaster in places like Kansas - but that's at the extreme end). Personally it's a cost benefit analysis - is it the best way to spend our money? And I think it says something about priorities and their vision for Australia - but I admit that's pretty wishy washy.
No the best way would be on a FTTP NBN, followed by further infrastructure building in capital cities. But this is still a net positive.
This assumes that the tax money disappears , which it usually doesn't , its generally spent on things that encourage growth: education , health and infrastructure. Well educated , healthy workers are more productive and good transit and communication paths are generally at least as good for business as they are the public.
The market will underinvest in some areas, education, healthcare, welfare and infrastructure, to name a few. It will also underregulate in some markets, energy, banking, general antitrust. But that doesn't mean that, on balance, that our country isn't both overregulated, over-taxed, and with government spending that is too high.
You're argument is more against running unnecessarily large surpluses and I don't think anyone anywhere thinks those are a good idea.
Nah we can run moderate deficits forever.
But accepting that flawed premise, then you must concede that sacrificing some amount of growth is important for society and good governance as an, ahem, truism. So we're back to what necessity and nuance mean.
We see diminishing marginal returns on healthcare spending. We also are seeing increased spending for no increase in patient outcomes. This is partly attributable to increased longevity in Australian citizens, but it's also partly misattributed funds, useless expenditure and other non-necessities that burden taxpayers for no reason.
Heavy qualification. Meaning heavy regulation. Meaning an oversight body with teeth. I don't know how such a body can exist alongside the kinds of wealth concentration that we see as a natural part of the system.
I'd be ok with an estate tax of 50-60%, in addition to a federal ICAC, strong anti-trust regulation, etc.
Pro-market doesn't always mean pro-business, rent seeking is real and it's damaging to everybody except those who extract rent.
One of the best examples is land banking, which pushes up housing prices in return for almost no productive investment. The fix for this is a land-value tax and a reduction in the top marginal income tax combined with removing deductions.
Presumably you'd agree there would be a point where not enough tax also inhibits growth.
Of course.
Even if you just burnt the money from a carbon tax, sugar tax, cigarette tax and possibly a land-value tax, you'd still see more sustainable long-term growth than if they didn't exist.
Neoliberal economics taken to the extreme are bullshit. Look no further than the US with its raging hard-on for small government, small taxes and little regulation. Look at their stagnant wage growth and massive inequality. Look at their hugely expensive yet woefully under-performing system of public health. Look at the performance of students in their public education system. Ugh. It's horrible.
For all the things America has achieved with its neoliberal ideology a fair and equitable society for all its people isn't one of them. I'll take higher taxes, higher regulation and our "welfare state" any day.
The US actually does pretty well. And their wages aren't stagnant, it's a myth. For more neo-liberal shill information, try this:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2010/Sumnerneoliberalism.html
