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Sarkozy Disparages Gordon Brown's Response To Economic Crisis



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- New Discipulus04 See Profile I'm a Fan of Discipulus04 permalink

Sarkozy is on to something here

    Reply    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:31 AM on 02/07/2009
- Paralogos See Profile I'm a Fan of Paralogos permalink

I too question the wisdom and efficacy of Brown's VAT cut, but what the English-language press seems to be missing in their coverage of Sarkozy's comments is that, in the same speech, the only new stimulus mechansim Sarkozy proposed for France was....a tax cut! Only what he announced wasn't a cut on consumer taxes, but on business taxes, the "taxe professionelle" that businesses (like mine) pay to their local government. The argument is that this will help create employment, but that's even more dubious than Brown's assertion that cutting VAT will cause a rise in consumption. And, since the taxe professionelle accounts for the majority of revenues for many cities and towns, there's a huge question as to where the money will come from to pay for things like municipal police, school maintenence (teachers are paid out of separate funds), roadwork, sanitation, etc. etc. It's highly likely that layoffs of municipal workers will vastly exceed any jobs created by companies paying less TP. Brown's idea was dubious. Sarkozy's is insane.

    Reply    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 06:20 AM on 02/07/2009

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