John Humphreys

Unpacking Gillard’s income tax changes

_{Published in Menzies House blog on 10 July 2011 under the title “A closer look at the income tax changes“}

The government has announced their plans for a new carbon tax, and the related compensation payments and tax cuts. The good news is that the government is increasing the tax-free threshold and winding down the confusing and misleading “low-income tax offset” (LITO). Next year the tax-free threshold will increase to $18,839.

Unfortunately, the government continues to hide the actual marginal tax rates by reporting the LITO and medicare levy separately from the “headline” marginal tax rates. The actual marginal tax rates for 2011, 2012 and 2015 are at the bottom of this post. As you can see, they are as confusing as ever.

Benefits-cost analysis of carbon tax

_{Published in The Drum ABC Online on 20 June 2011 under the title “Carbon tax and evidence-based policy”.}

I accept what I see as the mainstream science on climate change. The world has had a warming trend in recent decades, this is partly caused by humans, and I expect it to continue into the future.

I am comfortable with the IPCC range of estimates of warming, which has a mid-point estimate of 2.8 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial temperatures (ie 2.1C above today). I hope the sceptical scientists are right and that warming will be lower, but I find the IPCC estimates plausible and an appropriate starting point for analysis.

Standing up for smokers’ rights

_{Published in The Drum ABC Online on 1 June 2011 under the title “It’s time to stand up for smokers’ rights”.}

Perhaps it is inevitable that people will always need to find a minority to hate. Whether it is based on race, or sex, or sexual preference, or lifestyle choice, or language, or religion, or personal habits… the instinct to discriminate, to distrust “different” people, and to enforce conformity is a constant theme throughout history and throughout the world. If this instinct was purely personal, then it would not be a big issue. People could simply choose to associate with those people they prefer, and we could all live in peace. But sadly, many groups want to use the government to force their bigotry on others.

Improving Gillard’s carbon tax

_{Published in The Drum ABC Online on 25 March 2011 under the title “How Julia Gillard could improve the carbon tax”.}

The debate about the carbon tax is so passionate and divisive that a compromise is almost certainly out of the question.

That doesn’t mean we can’t consider the thought experiment. I am on the public record as being against Gillard’s carbon tax, but after Ross Garnaut came out recently talking about linking the carbon tax with other tax cuts I started thinking about what else could be done to make the carbon tax “less bad”. The following are the demands I would put to the government if they wanted me to consider supporting their new tax…

The creeping growth of government in the US

_{Published in Menzies House blog on 23 November 2010 under the title “Growth in Government“}

The twentieth century has been the century of the state. Not only did the world have to deal with two militant statist philosophies (fascism & socialism) but the “free” world also slowly drifted further and further towards a statist outcome. Our methods have been fairer and our behaviour more humane, but ultimately the western world seems to be tip-toeing towards a situation where the state has significant control over our lives. Jonah Goldberg has described this shift to benevolent big-government as “liberal fascism” which might be a bit harsh… but also might be a bit fair.

Strangely though, as the government grows, so do the calls on the left that we are becoming more “right wing” and/or too “free-market”. Somehow, this is taken seriously. The source of all this evil free-market right-wing ideology is the super-capitalist super-power — the USA. So I thought it might be worth having a look at the size of the American government over the last 80 years.