This week the UK government introduced massive high-income tax cuts – cuts that are not even as bad as the Stage 3 tax cuts here in Australia. And the reaction by the market was brutal. Investors saw the tax cuts for what they were – a redistribution of national income from the poorest to the wealthiest, that provided no economic growth. As a result the value of the UK Pound plunged.
Fiscal Policy Director, Greg Jericho, notes in his Guardian Australia column that there are big lessons for Australia.
The Stage 3 tax cuts are a case of terrible economics masquerading as a growth strategy. Trickledown economics does not work, never has, and this week we have discovered that even the markets agree.
Rather than destroy your tax base, governments need to care about sustaining a broad revenue base that works to reduce inequality and fund services and investments that drives productivity and helps those who most need it.
Trickledown economics has never worked and was always just fraudulent spin designed to hide its real aim of giving rich and powerful people tax cuts at the expense of others.
This week has shown that no one even believes the lie anymore.
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