Tim Humphries compares the 2012 budget to a Bugs Bunny Racketeering Clip:
My earliest memory of political satire was watching Bugs Bunny's Racketeer Rabbit (1946). This cartoon first catalyzed my fascination and thinking on animation and the pop culture metaphors that can be used to describe Politics and Society in its current 'Nanny Statist' form.
Racketeer Rabbit if analysed syntactically, taking into account mise en scene and specific cultural references draws very specifically on the 'Al Capone Prohibition' era.
The parallels between Wayne Swan's recent tax and spend budget and this Looney Tunes take is too amusing to pass up.
KPMG projects in its Economic and Fiscal analysis a return to $1.5 Billion dollars of surplus by 2012-13 at about 0.1 percent of GDP. KPMG's report goes onto express these figures in percentages stating the deficit to be 3.0 percent of GDP.
If Wayne Swan is the Al Capone figure then the Australian people must be Bugs Bunny. The Australian people are noble creatures, who much like the cartoon just want to be left alone by the antics of the mobsters in the floor above!
Go with me on this. All of a sudden Swannie and his trigger happy sidekicks decide to spray bullets across their business opponents, hitting them with the hot lead of new "Carbon and Mining Taxes". Along with the much vaunted 1 cent business tax cut which was abandoned cynically for the current slice of class warfarism.
Despite all the shenangans, the trend line for unemployment remains relatively stable. However the iratic nature of this Al Capone Budget, diverts attention from the rob Peter to Pay Paul mentality putting real pain off until after that very important show down due sometime next year.
In all honesty, with a bit of luck, some real tax cuts and a more flexible industrial relations system, Australia could potentially have an unemployment figure with a "4" in front of it. As an aspirational entreprenuer I strongly hope we move in this direction.
On Personal Tax, Wayne 'Capone' Swan has been particularly disappointing. Raising the marginal tax thresholds to over $18,000 dollars will only trap the young in a cycle of low paying jobs to pay off student debts they can't actually pay!
This treadmill is silly and must stop discouraging people from drive, enterprise and ambition. The other massive slug is the increase in taxation on superannuation which rises from 15 cents in the dollar to 30 cents from July 1.
Then there's the big 'racket' in rumoured changes that would ramp up taxes on smokers, drinkers and even reports about taxing pork! If true, using the racketeer monopoly of government to bump some smokes, grog and a few legs of ham off the proverbial economic truck to slice and dice their economic picture, isn't just appallingly unhealthy, it also looks desperate!
Despite all the mean and nasty things the gangsters are doing to everyday Australians, I would point you toward the morning rays that seem to be poking through the clouds over at Poll Bludger.
If the 58-42 Coalition vote holds up, maybe Wayne 'Capone' Swan will go 'insane' just like the Boss of the cartoon and escape before the people get to him first.
What amused me most about my recent foray into the golden classics of Warner Brothers, was the overriding idea that Bugs Bunny always outsmarted his foes in the end. If the parallel between the Australian people and Bugs Bunny holds, “That’s all Folks” for the ALP can’t be far off.
Timothy W. Humphries is a contributor to Menzies House and the Australian Libertarian Society ‘Thoughts on Freedom Blog’ and writes from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
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