FF and FG should spend like mad, then let Sinn Féin sort it out with magic money tree
IT’S funny how conventional wisdom is arrived at in Ireland. Talking to people in both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, you’d be struck by the common assumption of many (not all) that Sinn Féin will be in power five years from now. It’s all based on the idea the next government will spend five years battling to get the public finances and employment into some sort of reasonable order just in time for Sinn Féin to get the electorate’s kit off with the promise of a kiss and a bag of fiscal magic beans.
It’s recounted to you with a sigh, and a hope Sinn Féin will possibly then lose the following election having failed to deliver to their voters.
I must admit to finding that proposition to be very high risk and based on the assumption that it is impossible to deliver for everyone.
Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are making a major miscalculation here, because Sinn Féin has no desire to please everybody.
Don’t forget, unlike Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who’d see Jack the Ripper as merely another voter to be won over, possibly with a tax write-off for his unusually high dry-cleaning bill, Sinn Féin will target its voters and screw everyone else. It can deliver for a narrow voter base whilst also transforming the State from within to make elections much more, shall we say, Hungarian.
Just watch as large tranches of the urban electorate start finding murals appearing, informing them that they now live in Sinn Féin “territory”, and county managers appointed by a Sinn Féin local government minister look the other way.
Look on in horror as other party canvassers will be politely informed they’re not welcome “in the area”, as Sinn Féinappointed judges and newly appointed Garda senior officers read the political lay of the land and look off politely into the distance.
Once they’re in, they’ll be much harder to get out, becoming the new Fianna Fáil.
Let’s be clear: Sinn Féin has as much right to be in government as anybody else. The key is who will be in government with them.
But before we even reach this point, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael don’t have to make it any easier for them.
In that vein, here’s a suggestion. Screw fiscal responsibility. There’s no votes in cutting social welfare and balancing the books, so don’t bother. Let the deficit rise.
Leave it to be Sinn Féin’s problem. After all, it’ll not like anybody concerned about the issue is going to actually vote Sinn
Féin and it’s not like there’ll be a single centre-right party on the opposition benches anyway.
If anything, the opposition will be throwing spending promises about the place like Guinness at the MI5 informants’ annual Christmas party.
As for the EU and the Fiscal Treaty? Meh. The whole of Europe will be doing what we’re doing, so we’ll hardly be singled out for a slap.
In fact, now would be a great time to start negotiating the whole future of corporate taxation on the basis the opposition are hardly going to kick off. Now is the time, in return for a guaranteed share of the federal treasury, to agree to a federal European corporate tax regime.
What will Sinn Féin and the liquorice allsorts left do? Demand fair play for Apple? Leave Google alone? Unhand Amazon? Now’s the time.
I’m not suggesting the government be reckless, just not stupid. Nobody votes for you cutting social welfare, so don’t. Same with public sector pay. VAT will scoop back a good chunk of it anyway.
A big ball of money to be spent on social housing is pretty much unavoidable, although it might be worth the government looking at extending the Dáil term to seven years under Article 16 to give themselves time to actually build houses and let recovery happen.
Also, as the election finally veers into view seven years from now, the government shouldn’t hesitate to issue a nice fat tax rebate cheque to every PAYE worker, perhaps dated for after the election, so that if the opposition attacks the tax cut, they can then be given an opportunity just before polling day to tell the voters that they’ll cancel the cheques they’re holding in their hands.
That magic money tree can work for us all. A bit Trumpy? A bit reckless?
Probably, but no more than the other crowd, so why not?
The rules are off. Maths is for elites. By the way, here’s another simple bit of mischief for Fine Fáil/Fine Gael: given Sinn Féin will clean up in the 2024 local elections as so many rural wards will only have Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael councillors defending their seats, why not put the sitting mayors’ names, party and photos on the Local Property Tax bills as the face of the local authority? Most of them will be opposition councillors. Make them take responsibility for running their counties.
Just imagine the indignation: “I came here for the big chain, big salary and the big portrait. Now I’m being held responsible for the council I pretend to run? It’s not fair!”
Yes, the deficit will have to be dealt with eventually, with additional billions in borrowing sending up our borrowing costs.
But you know what? Sinn Féin says the additional funding for a United Ireland can be easily found, so this isn’t much different.
That Pearse Doherty seems like a smart cookie as Minister for Finance Designate.
Let him deal with it.
Screw fiscal responsibility. There’s no votes in cutting social welfare and balancing the books, so don’t bother. Let the deficit rise