High fuel prices are a direct result of the euro/dollar weakening it’s value, similar to how the price of other commodities such as gold rise when the fiat currency is weakened investors will buy physical..

Nellysroom. I had a car like that too once.

Me and my friends use Green diesel. We also earn cash in hand otherwise our business would close.

The big syringe in the photo tells its all, “government heroin” take 13000 possible private sector workers get them hooked and they will be dependant for life on the the new unaffordable projects

What Arron is advocating was tried before in 1977 with disastrous consequences. Every new generation refuses to learn the lessons from the past and thus history repeats itself. Accordingly advocating reform without the necessary erudition would meet the criteria to be classed a “low calibre analysis”.

Charles, what successive Irish governments attempted to do, post-oil crisis, was Keynesian-style deficit spending; similar to the currently proposed government stimulus plans. This resulted in national borrowings reaching unsustainable levels, no economic growth and continued increase in unemployment and emmigration.
As Mr McKenna describes and history shows, consumer lead spending is of greater benefit to the economy than the poltically motivated, agenda-lead, inefficient spending of government.

Sean O’Keeffe, where do you think the money is going to come from to pay for tax cuts while running a budget deficit? Slash and burn or borrowing! The former will take vast sums of money out of the economy and reducing the ability of consumers to earn cash. The latter, borrowing kicks the problem down the road. It appears that the equation is just too simple to be understood.

Funding tax cuts:
Firstly, (as already pointed out) reduce spending. Not including unemployment welfare costs and debt repayments The Irish government is one of the highest spending in Europe. This is not sustainable. Example: healthcare spending highest in eurozone despite having the youngest population.
Secondly, reducing tax rates often has the effect of increasing revenues. (See Russian reform of income tax 1991. McCreevy reducing Irish CGT.)
Thirdly, tax cuts can be funded from wherever the government intends funding stimulus.

I Couldn’t agree more, unfortunately our fiscal policy is so influenced by the European social climate that we are unlikely to see much apetite for cuts in tax or spending.
Consider France where employer’s PRSI is over 50% and employees’ rights so burdensome, that most small businesses cannot afford to take on any staff, or do so in very small numbers. This understaffing helps to perpetuate the renowned French customer service experience.
Two friends of mine were running a restaurant in the Alps, and although not married, were partners running it as a husband and wife team. The male half of the team was the owner on paper, and because they weren’t married, his GF was not exempt from employer’s obligations, so she was not working on the books. The police found out about the arrangement, arrested him (handcuffs in the middle of the day-fortunately not prosecuted) and shut down the restaurant. A year later the unit is still vacant.
This is the mindset of our friends of the continent.

Totally agree with you 100%. You’re asked to buy Irish so why not employ Irish.

Hamstrings, your argument demonstrates that we are a nation prejudiced against ourselves. Now I wonder if we are ever going to see articles about the harm that kind of behaviour does to our society!

100% correct.

Make it worth while for the employer to hire lower paying jobs cut minimum wage and dole at the same time

If you can’t afford to pay minimum wage then surely your business is not viable? unless its a case of being able to pay less to increase profits out of greed..

Any Boss who wants to pay less than the minimum wage should be willing to take same wage to demonstrate the genuine need to sustain the viability of the business.

They need to tax wealthy business and corporations higher while lowering the tax for ordinary people.Close the tax loopholes that exist whereby a corporation gets tax free allowances on a new company vehicle, etc.

Read some of my past articles on TJ. There’s rakes of specifics. We ran a whole series on it you might be interested to read.

Will do Aaron. Cheers for the heads up.

And so I said: Cut spending to cut taxes. Deficit neutral. We know tax increases just kill the economy. Look at Q1 as an example.

That’s fine but then it wont be expansionary. Spending cuts will offset the expansionary effects of the tax cut.

We know high tax rates are distortionary. But we also know that 100% of govt spending is included as as spending in GDP. If you cut govt spending and cut taxes not all of that govt spending will be replaced by private spending because some of it will be saved.

The empirical evidence is quite mixed on whether cutting spending in order to cut taxes is beneficial or damaging.

I think the evidence is mixed by those who don’t want to cut the government cake. Government is highly inefficient in much of its spending versus low and middle income earners.

Yes but that inefficiency is offset by the fact that all govt spending is spent but some of the tax cuts will be saved. Plus I would say that govt spends a higher ratio domestically.

On balance I think it’s fair to assume that any deficit neutral actions won’t have much effect on the economy. The govt’s hands are pretty much tied.

Dude the bush tax cuts would have worked had George Bush kept to his original platform of small decentralised government… Sadly he got into 2 wars, and expanded welfare by 3 times in some areas.

So they did not work. And he didn’t ‘sadly get into two wars’ he invaded two countries that never attacked america and enriched his defense contractor buddies and haliburton using taxpayer money that could have been boosting the economy. Worth noting as well that he is the only american president EVER to cut taxes during wartime, the opposite is the norm with the extra revenue used to fund it.

Well saying that he was the only president to ever lower taxes is not really fair as the income tax has only being there since the very early 20 century.. He did not need to raise taxes as he borrowed and the FED just printed dollars to fund all of it … I dont take Americas side when I say “sadly ” as you seem to suggest..

So, VAT hits the poorest in Ireland the hardest, so much so that the bottom 10% of income earners pay more tax than the next four deciles because of it.

The marginal rate of income tax hits 50% at €32,800 when the average salary is €36,000.

The tax on households and water will hit average and lower income earners more than the rich.

It’s low and middle income earners who are missing in our economy to drive it forward.

But advocating tax cuts is a big win for the rich…?

Let’s just face it: Hard lefties just can’t stand the idea that government should be any smaller to accommodate people’s pockets and grow the economy.

You should try out for fox news Aaron. The ‘pundits’ on there are fond of tax cut and smaller government as well. They’re also fond of pushing for the continuance of a tax code that favours the wealthy that has decimated their economy over the Bush years.

Unfortunately for you people in this country aren’t as dumb as the usual target audience for such up is down drivel. Would you, for instance, advocate a third tax rate for people like yourself who are in a position to contribute more without going to the poorhouse?

You article, as with the rest of them, is big on soundbites and short on specifics. Your attempt to push for tax cuts without revealing the type of tax cuts you’re advocating is typical of the blanketbombing we can expect from IBEC and people like yourself coming up to the budget. “Lets cut tax and watch the top earnrs trickle down some gray to the unwashed masses”. Trouble is Aaron, as we have seen by the widening gap in our society and employment figures, thats not gravy trickling down, and its not champagne despite the similar colour

Oh, and Aaron, its not just the ‘lefties’, Nobel winning economist Pauk Krugman tore a couple of your ‘tax cuts, smaller government’ friends a new one on BBCs newsnight a while ago. He called them on their agenda and made mincemeat of their arguments with simple common sense.

I actually agree with TooTrue Left for once! A recent report showed that Ireland still had one of the lowest tax burdens per GDP in the eurozone area, even after all the increases we’ve seen. The gap between intake and expenditure has to be narrowed somehow. Tax doesn’t decrease the money in the economy the way cuts do as ideally tax is spent on public services which are part of the domestic economy.
Of course servicing the national debt does cost huge sums of money and that does leave the economy, so it’s vital we get a deal on the banking debt.

Studies from places like Harvard University have shown that tax increases harm the economy 2x’s as much as govt spending cuts. It depends on the tax and the spend, but generally the trend is there.

As I say, VAT for example is an extremely regressive tax that hurts poor and middle income earners far more than high income earners. We’ve seen what the 2% increase did to retail sales – and jobs for low and middle income earners, to boot – this year.

Several years into the crisis and govt keeps turning up things like communion dress allowances and car parking perks for civil servants, not to mention the lack of a real tackle into the Quango sector etc, but we’re told all govt spending is sacred and to protect the common good? That argument doesn’t wash. Meanwhile, increased taxes are killing the economy as plain as night follows day.

Still waiting for those specifics Aaron instead of the regurgitated right wing well heeled guy soundbites.

Take your time.

By the way Aaron, love how you immediately reply to ignoreland agreeing with me after an 8 hour gap between any posts for our subthread.

They did a similar stimulus exercise in the US.

Most Yanks I know spent it on holiday in Amsterdam.

But you’re talking 500 quid a head. It’s hardly big money. It’d just vanish.

Could I just stress the immense amounts of sarcasm in that last comment.

Absolutely agree.

That will never happen. Best thinking that in public and see what people would do to you.

White collar crime needs to be taxed heavier and people who loose their jobs given social assistance.

Spot on Ryan, the easiest thing in the world to do is to criticise