Editorial Ta Nea: Beads

The government often maintains that due to its own efforts the country is returning to normalcy.

Yet, one must ask, do they really think it is normal for freelance professionals to pay 60 percent of their income on taxes and insurance contributions?

Do they really believe that taxpayers can shoulder such a burden and that the economy can get a breather when economic activity is taxed so brutally? Do they not understand that this policy encourages tax evasion and boosts the black economy?

The questions are rhetorical. Those in power know very well that the economy is suffocating with over-taxation of that magnitude, and that this suffocation means lower growth rates and consequently fewer jobs.

Over-taxation does not serve some need of the economy. It is a political choice which aims at creating primary surpluses that will allow the government to appear generous to certain categories of citizens. The aim is not a redistribution of wealth. It is the creation of an electoral clientele.

This is a short-sighted policy of a government that is not interested in the future and has not learned from the past.
Never in the past has pre-electoral handouts – with much larger packages of benefits than the current government can afford – yielded the desired results at the polls.

Citizens despise this policy of beads and mirrors [with which the Dutch are said to have bought Manhattan from Native Americans], and all the more so because they know they have paid dearly for the beads.