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.
Between the Lines Newsletter
The biggest stories and the best analysis from the team at the Australia Institute, delivered to your inbox every fortnight.
You might also like
Analysis: Will 2025 be a good or bad year for women workers in Australia?
In 2024 we saw some welcome developments for working women, led by government reforms. Benefits from these changes will continue in 2025. However, this year, technological, social and political changes may challenge working women’s economic security and threaten progress towards gender equality at work Here’s our list of five areas we think will impact on
Does leave for menstruation and menopause advance women’s rights and gender equality at work?
As pressure grows for action to establish new work rights, including additional leave, for those who experience menstruation and menopause, the Centre for Future Work’s Senior Researcher, Lisa Heap, canvases the debate about whether these rights will advance gender equality at work.
Closing Loopholes Protections, Including Right to Disconnect, Come Into Effect 26 August
New labour rights coming into effect on 26 August, including the ‘Right to Disconnect’.