Catallaxy Files

A handy “off the rack” critique of proposals for foreign aid, courtesy of  Bill Easterly at Aid Watch.

The rejoinder “Why my aid project is important (and will work)”.

And Bill Easterly’s advice “How to write about poor people“.

Andrew Norton comments on some Cabinet papers on higher education from 1979.

This result seems to capture the long-term culture of higher education policy on the Coalition side – some broadly sound but half-hearted and quarter-way policy suggestions, trumped by political nervousness. There has never been a critical mass of Coalition MPs who care enough and know enough about the issue to take some political risks to achieve something really worthwhile.

Michael Warby provides a rack of philosophy links. Including a (not serious) list of causes of death of philosophers. Mostly jokes for the insiders of course, like the Philosophers Lexicon. Read the rest of this entry »

In late 2008 Julie Novak, Kate Herbert and I released an analysis of the State Business Tax burden. It generated a lot of interest – the Victorian government, for example, quotes from the report when criticised over land tax. Other state governments, however, went feral. The premier of South Australia was particularly critical. I can’t find the original piece on South Australian ABC radio, but basically he said we were incompetant. In particular, he argued we had ignored payroll tax cuts. We hadn’t ignored the proposed tax cuts; they apply to this year, not last year, and are included in this years analysis. But he couldn’t help himself, he went even further. (emphasis added)

Premier Mike Rann said the IPA report would not have taken into account the latest cuts to payroll tax.

Mr Rann told ABC radio it was also important to keep the balance between revenue and expenditure needs to help provide extra funding for health and to employ more doctors, nurses and police.

Yes, well; that is a testable hypothesis. The Australian Financial Review report that the South Australian mid-year budget is in for the current year. Remember Mr Rann spends his money on doctors and nurses and police (I imagine teachers too).

South Australian government agencies have blown their budgets by more than $100 million and Premier Mike Rann’s own department is one of the worst offenders.
The Australian Financial Review reports that the blow-out is detailed in the Treasurer’s Quarterly Statement on the Consolidated Account, which was gazetted on December 23.
It details the performance of the government’s main operating account for the past financial year, including the cash payments made to departments and most revenue collected by the government.
Only in June the government predicted in the state budget that it would underspend the consolidated account’s allocation of $9.44 billion by about $43 million.
But the quarterly statement shows the government instead overran its budget by more than $100 million in the year to June 30, doling out $9.55 billion.

It seems that the South Australian government haven’t overspent on health and police, but have overspent in most other areas.

Julie Novak did an update of the State Business Tax Burden in 2009. Despite performing much better on payroll tax, South Australia is now the worst state for business taxation.