You’d be hard pressed to find a person in Ireland who doesn’t hate the USC tax with a burning passion, and for good reason.
In the past week we learned that according to a new RedC poll in the Business Post, the overwhelming majority of Irish people – well over 70% – despise the USC, and want it scrapped before the next budget. Which is hardly surprising when you think about it – USC should stand for “Unwanted Shameless Charge.”
Tomorrow's front page. Pick up a copy in stores or subscribe at https://t.co/u5ystSGUtr:
🗞️ Huge majority demand USC be abolished
🗞️ Ryanair calls for independent third terminal at Dublin Airport
🗞️ Daniel Murray accompanies Ukrainian refugees fleeing Lviv for Ireland pic.twitter.com/QsQWfG8lPu
— Business Post (@businessposthq) June 3, 2023
This is, after all, the same “temporary emergency” USC tax, which was so temporary that it’s now well over a decade old. If the USC was a person, it would be old enough to grow facial hair and would currently be studying for its Junior Cert.
In the eyes of most taxpayers, this tax has clearly overstayed its welcome, and people are understandably sick of it – particularly in the context of the current cost of living crisis, with most households struggling to make ends’ meet financially.
In fact, not only do the overall majority of Irish people want this tax gone, but so do the majority of all major parties’ supporters. According to RedC, 76% of Sinn Féin voters, 74% of Fianna Fáil voters, and 65% of Fine Gael voters all want the USC to be scrapped.
But as we’ve learned from the government’s highly unpopular asylum policy, their highly unpopular trans prisoners policy, their policy of raising corporation tax, and much more, something being absolutely hated by voters does not mean that politicians intend to actually do anything about it. And this case is apparently no different – as the Business Post reports:
“All major parties are persisting with backing of the tax against the wishes of their supporters.”
Now, we don’t need to speculate as to why this might be. Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe TD, who has variously served as Finance Minister and Public Expenditure Minister in recent years, has repeatedly explained his reasoning for why this tax is going nowhere. He says that without it, we’d apparently be skint.
As reported by the Irish Times in 2021:
Last November, the following year, Donohoe re-iterated a similar point, saying that the USC was needed because the Irish economy was under “many pressures”:
So basically, even though the public hates it, it would just cost too much to scrap the USC, and we can’t afford to do so. The State needs that extra couple of billion quid badly, and we’d be snookered without it – that’s the Minister’s claim.
This is fascinating, though, because this is the same government that casually pisses away billions of euros on other projects on a regular basis.
For example, Donohoe’s concern is that to scrap the USC altogether, the State would lose €4.4 billion a year. Yet Ireland spends a shocking €6 billion euro annually on NGOs, many of which are engaged in “advocacy” – i.e. lobbying – according to the Minister himself.
WATCH: Minister Paschal Donohoe says that many NGOs involved in "advocacy" still receive State funding, because of their "expertise" and "valuable" work. #gript pic.twitter.com/TZ2skX55oY
— gript (@griptmedia) April 18, 2023
So cutting the USC for those earning less than €70,000 per year would only cost the State €1.7 billion, which Donohoe says is too expensive. But he’s happy to spend 3.5 times more than that on a sector largely comprised of financially parasitic quangos and activist lobbying groups.
In other words, we do actually have the money – just not to help you pay your bills.
Another great example of this is the fact that the government insisted on putting up carbon tax this year during an energy and cost of living crisis, arguing that they urgently need the “carbon tax receipts” for the exchequer.
"Does hiking taxes help during a crisis?" Gript presses Finance Minister Michael McGrath on carbon tax hikes, and how he plans to help those in energy poverty.
FULL VIDEO: https://t.co/fLObC2ju6Q pic.twitter.com/K7FYbW511C
— gript (@griptmedia) January 5, 2023
The state infrastructure agency is putting up tolls on 9 major roads, wringing still more money out of the taxpayer.
Tolls on nine major roads, including the M50, are set to increase significantly starting from next month.#gripthttps://t.co/GIM3wFMRRI
— gript (@griptmedia) June 6, 2023
And at the same time, they’re spending €30 million a week on housing refugees, or €1.5 billion per year. So, effectively a blank cheque of your money.
Government spending €30m per week to house Ukrainian refugees https://t.co/BECBxo9p4h
— Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) April 10, 2023
We’re living in a country that’s loaded enough to house the whole world, but somehow too broke to take care of our own people. We can afford to shut down the economy for years over a mild illness, but can’t seem to do much about the skyrocketing cost of living. We’re throwing around €6 billion for NGOs, most of which are worthless political lobbying groups, but we’re squeezing ordinary families with levies like carbon tax just to make ends meet. We magically find hundreds of millions of euros for RTÉ, but paying our Defense Forces personnel more? Sorry, no can do.
Ireland’s economy is a fascinating chameleon of a thing, really. We seem to live in a kind of “Schrödinger’s cat” economy, where the State is simultaneously minted, or broke, depending on how much or how little the government feels like spending on a particular project.
If they’re sufficiently enthusiastic about a plan, then nothing will stop them – not expense, not public backlash, and not even the constitution in the case of the Covid-19 lockdown. But if they’re not too keen on an idea…well then it’s just impossible, isn’t it?
The Irish economy, it seems, is exactly as strong or weak as Irish politicians would like it to be at any given moment. And we should all remember that the next time they come to us penny pinching and mumbling about “fiscal responsibility” as an excuse for not doing their jobs.