All Elly Schlein’s woke follies on taxes and the environment
In fact, Schlein's proposals increase inequalities and are functional to that extreme polarization between rich and poor which he says he wants to fight in words. Sergio Giraldo's article
The new secretary of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein carries in her backpack a program full of topics dear to the woke ideology. There is also the environmental and energy theme, which occupies many of the 33 pages of the congressional motion in support of the candidacy of the former MEP as national secretary of the Dem. In addition to the usual, convoluted formulas referring to hypothetical rights to be anything, scrolling through the text with difficulty sometimes you also come across numbers.
One of the few cases of concrete proposals is the following: “Every year Italy spends almost 22 billion euros on environmentally harmful subsidies (SAD). They must be eliminated as soon as possible, reinvesting these resources in ecological conversion to create good work and good business, in reducing VAT on circular products, in supporting the most vulnerable businesses and families."
SCHLEIN WANT TO RAISE TAXES BY 22 BILLION?
In simple terms, the new secretary is asking to raise taxes by 22 billion. Yes, because the figure in question is not public expenditure, since it is actually a loss of revenue for which there is no corresponding item in the state budget. If these reliefs were abolished, the Treasury would simply collect 22 billion more a year, also causing the tax burden to rise by 1.1% to 44.6% of GDP. Schlein says that the state should use these 22 billion additional revenues to facilitate "ecological conversion", i.e. to subsidize the green.
The Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, which drew up a catalog in 2021, estimates that there are 60 existing SADs, for a value of 21.6 billion euros in 2020, placing a further 35 (for 13.6 billion euros) among those of uncertain classification. According to the MASE, a subsidy is any "form of relief that implicitly emerges from a determined differentiation of the level of taxation". In addition, these facilities are considered harmful to the environment because they would encourage the use of fossil fuels or soil.
ENVIRONMENTALLY HARMFUL SUBSIDIES (SAD)
The concept is a bit slippery, so let's give some examples. The difference in excise duty between diesel and petrol is a SAD: it is about 11 euro cents per liter in favor of diesel for motor vehicles (excise duty on petrol €0.7284/L, excise duty on diesel €0.6174/L), for a total of about 3 billion euros per year.
In Schlein's logic, the difference is to be eliminated by raising the excise duty on diesel, not by decreasing that on petrol. Which sounds bizarre at the very least, considering the uproar staged by the left when Giorgia Meloni's government eliminated the reduction in excise duty on fuel last December, reintroducing full excise duty. The discount, initially established by the Draghi government (therefore with the Democratic Party in the government majority) has allowed families and businesses to contain mobility costs during 2022. But according to Schlein, diesel should cost 11 cents more per litre, without discussion. Not considering, with this, that Italian excise duties are among the highest in the European Union and are already beyond what would be logical to expect to cover the external costs associated with car use.
The subsidized VAT of 4% for the purchase of the first home from the builder is also considered SAD (exemption which would be worth around 2 billion euros a year). Indeed, according to the Mase catalogue, the VAT discount “promotes a real estate market based on new buildings rather than on the renovation of existing houses or areas. Given that new constructions lead to an increase in urbanization and land consumption, it is a SAD”.
The reduced excise duty on LPG for heating in mountain areas? It is an environmentally harmful subsidy. The discount on diesel used by trucks and in agriculture is a SAD. Even the reduced VAT on electricity consumed by households (10% compared to the full VAT of 22%) is a SAD, because it encourages the use of… electricity! It should be noted that at the same time the European Union is pushing to dramatically increase consumption with electric cars and heat pumps: these are the internal contradictions of a system now on its way towards general madness.
The catalog of environmentally harmful subsidies reflects an ideological vision, in which every human activity is environmentally harmful, therefore it must be limited or forced to be brought back into the context of "respect for the environment", whatever that means.
A REGRESSIVE TAX BOMB
Even more, the indication of raising taxes contained in Schlein's program shows how classist environmental policies are (to use a lexicon once dear to the left). Yes, because the 22 billion extra taxes would not weigh on the richest, but on the generality of Italians, already impoverished by the exhausting economic situation. It will be the masses who will have to bear the cost of the transition.
The absolute disregard with which the major left-wing party intends to introduce a regressive fiscal bomb is yet another proof of how distant the PD is now from those social classes that have been its electorate for decades. Elly Schlein's platform is imbued with the rhetoric of equality: “A fairer future: combating all forms of inequality and discrimination”, screams the title of a small chapter of the document. It is a pity that in fact Schlein's proposals increase inequalities and are exactly functional to that extreme polarization between rich and poor which he says he wants to fight in words.
What are called SAD are actually economic policy measures, taken at the time with a reason, sometimes even with social ends: the reduced VAT on first homes, for example, was intended to facilitate home ownership. But by now it is clear that progressive ideology does not care anything about man, considered as a hostile emitter of perfidious carbon dioxide. Everything must be enslaved to an imaginary salvation of the planet: this is the new refrain of the song of the sun of the future.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/elly-schlein-tasse-sussidi-ambientalmente-dannosi/ on Sun, 05 Mar 2023 06:36:07 +0000.