Have you ever really asked yourself why taxes were flattened to 15% between 2005 and 2010? Probably not. That was done because it made the wealthiest segment of the population a lot richer. Not because of some bogus Triple External Shocks argument. And some politicians would want to do this because the opaque financial contributions they receive would get larger. A lot larger. Even if it meant killing savings in the economy or throwing a lot more people into poverty. This is called a plutocracy. Not a democracy.
Indeed Household Budget Survey (HBS) data tells us that there were an extra 500 or so poor people in Mauritius after the first term of Navin Ramgoolam. But that by 2012 there were a record 22,000 more people that were thrown into poverty – bringing the total of poor Mauritians to 126,200 – compared to the preceding five years. Which coincides pretty much with his second term and the start of the reforms. That's like increasing the speed at which pockets of poverty are created by 44 times.
Of course things got so bad in our country that come election time Ramgoolam had no choice but to dump the chief architect of Shaitanomics and negotiate an alliance with the MSM – after renewing the Presidential mandate of SAJ – to avoid mayhem and probably a well-deserved 60-0. The thought of being politically slaughtered in an election is a powerful incentive for a lethargic leadership to finally wake up and smell the coffee. But now with the party lists and double candidacies in its electoral reform proposal – essentially a copy of the perverse 2012 Sithanen report – Government wants to compromise the only recourse that voters have to throw out incompetent and toxic politicians in an election. This is all the more obvious when you realise that there are so many ways of getting rid of the BLS without introducing these exceedingly undemocratic devices into our electoral system.
So yeah, a flat tax is really dangerous for any democracy. And so are party lists and double candidacies. Just imagine the harm they could do to our country together making the plutocracy difficult to dislodge.
© Sanjay Jagatsingh, 2014
Indeed Household Budget Survey (HBS) data tells us that there were an extra 500 or so poor people in Mauritius after the first term of Navin Ramgoolam. But that by 2012 there were a record 22,000 more people that were thrown into poverty – bringing the total of poor Mauritians to 126,200 – compared to the preceding five years. Which coincides pretty much with his second term and the start of the reforms. That's like increasing the speed at which pockets of poverty are created by 44 times.
Of course things got so bad in our country that come election time Ramgoolam had no choice but to dump the chief architect of Shaitanomics and negotiate an alliance with the MSM – after renewing the Presidential mandate of SAJ – to avoid mayhem and probably a well-deserved 60-0. The thought of being politically slaughtered in an election is a powerful incentive for a lethargic leadership to finally wake up and smell the coffee. But now with the party lists and double candidacies in its electoral reform proposal – essentially a copy of the perverse 2012 Sithanen report – Government wants to compromise the only recourse that voters have to throw out incompetent and toxic politicians in an election. This is all the more obvious when you realise that there are so many ways of getting rid of the BLS without introducing these exceedingly undemocratic devices into our electoral system.
So yeah, a flat tax is really dangerous for any democracy. And so are party lists and double candidacies. Just imagine the harm they could do to our country together making the plutocracy difficult to dislodge.
© Sanjay Jagatsingh, 2014
1 comment:
Made an edit to highlight how PR plus the flat tax doesn't only create a plutocracy but one which is difficult to get rid of.
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