The news on this broke late Saturday afternoon in America. Which means it was probably close to midnight in Europe when Brown and the rest of the UK contingent to the G20 learned that their grand plan had been compromised and leaked to the media.
What I find interesting about all this, is that on the surface the points that Merkel and ultimately Sarkozy have balked on are the issues of tax reductions.
There are only two real options for putting the brakes on these runaway western economies globally. First, line by line reductions of ALL non essential budgetary spending. Second, the reduction on production taxes and income taxes. In other words, taxes that tend to penalize economic growth as opposed to helping it along.
Taxation is a necessary evil, but it need not be a punitive tool employed beyond the requisite needs of any society. Yet this precisely the path that taxation has always taken. Someone some where in the food chain of government or at it's head, determines that more money can be raised for thus and such. And those additional funds will go for purchasing and spending for the interests and benefit of those in the elected or representative system. In other words, those taxes will be use to pay back those who voted for them and to pay off those who will vote for more of the same.
"To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States,
that is to say, 'to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the
general welfare.'
For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union."
Thomas Jefferson.
Wise words and not unlike many of his other thoughts and advice on government and freedom that now goes unheeded.
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