Ideas@TheCentre
Tax and the City
Jeremy Sammut |
21 May 2010
To borrow a line, I want to tell you about a girl.
We shall call her ‘Isabella.’ Isabella is a high school teacher at a public school. I know what you’re thinking and you are not entirely wrong.
She believes NAPLAN is a disgrace that punishes disadvantaged schools and that Deputy PM Gillard is a sell-out. I’m working on her on that and other fronts, because she is not a lost cause. At university, she protested against the construction of freeways on environmental grounds, but has since learnt-by-doing that freeways are a faster way to get to work without wasting hours each week in traffic.
Recently, Isabella made an interesting point for someone with a left-of-centre perspective on an old issue. As a dedicated and hard working educator, she mentioned how much of her modest salary is confiscated as income tax.
Not that she was complaining. You see, she wants to live in a welfare state in which everybody receives enough income from the government to keep body and soul together and keep people off the streets.
What was annoying her was the number of beggars constantly on show in the Sydney CBD. Show is the right word. These beggars come complete with cardboard accounts of tales of woe and kneel on the footpath with heads bowed in supplication.
This struck Isabella as un-Australian and a betrayal of the social contract she willingly supported. As she put it, she pays her taxes so fellow citizens don’t have to debase themselves by seeking ‘alms for the poor,’ and, therefore, resents being expected to feel guilty as she had already given at the office.
She suspected (rightly) that since even homeless people can claim benefits, these people are undeserving of a few loose dollars and cents more. She also has an old-fashioned respect for work, which led her to a profoundly un-Left conclusion. If the beggars can put so much thought and effort into their daily performances, why can’t they put the same energy into finding a job?
She also wondered what the police are doing and why these people are not moved on. This is a very good question.
Dr Jeremy Sammut is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
