Anything to do with any new form of tax, like consumption tax in Japan, carbon tax in Australia, these are big issues that cannot be easily decided.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
We've outpaced Japan and Europe in creating new jobs, but there's major competition from India and China. It's not enough to make income tax cuts permanent.
It may be that the carbon tax is the final chapter in the strange death of Labor Australia.
Tax can be structured in a way that actually encourages investment in infrastructure and encourages investment in Australia from overseas.
The tax issue is the most powerful issue in American politics going back to the Tea Party. People say, 'Oh, Grover Norquist has power.' No. Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform focus on the tax issue. The tax issue is a powerful issue.
The problem is government spends too much. So raising taxes is what politicians do, instead of reducing spending.
If, before 2020, there is a choice between further spending cuts, more borrowing and tax rises, the priority must be to avoid tax increases. They would disrupt consumption, employment and investment.
Why not put a tax on carbon emissions. It would raise a lot of money, it would reduce the environmental damages in the future, it would solve so many problems, and it would be a much more constructive thing to do than to think about raising the income tax.
I think we should have basically the same tax policy that Germany, Japan, the U.K., everybody else has, which is a tax rate in the mid-20s and no loopholes. Zero. The U.S. has the most antiquated tax system. And that means some people are going to pay more taxes, and some people are going to pay less.
The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
The obvious issue is providing clean drinking water and sanitation to every single human being on earth at the cost of little more than one year of the Kyoto treaty.