In New South Wales and other places, when you buy a house, you pay a lump of tax. (We call it "stamp duty", I have no idea why don't ask me).
It doesn't hurt so much, because borrowing more money to cover tax is no added pain - you've already been beaten to a bloody pulp by a bank, what's an extra $50k on $500k anyway?
Idea:
The Federal Government imposes a tax on buying property, payable after one year.
As a buyer, you either; spend 0.5% of the property on solar, insulation, electrification or storage, or you pay 0.5% to the government.
The payment would be tied to climate change mitigation efforts. It'd be a lot like the Medicare levy - either do your own, or forfeit an equivalent amount so the Government does it for you.
Call it the Greenhouse Levy.
(If the levy has already been paid on a property in the last 10 years, no need to pay it again, you are already infrastructured-up. After that? it becomes payable, that infrastructure needs some maintenance now.)
@davidallengreen with his tongue firmly placed in his cheek suggests what #RishiSunak really needs to help him make #government actually works is a committee of all the major departmental heads that meets (maybe twice a week), established joint responsibility for its actions & whose discussions remain confidential to ensure full & frank communication of issues that need to be resolved by that committee;
now what might you call that, I wonder & why haven't we got one?
The U.S. #government has urged an appeals court to uphold the conviction and 20-year prison sentence of #GhislaineMaxwell, who was found guilty of helping the disgraced late billionaire financier sexually abuse teenage girls and women.
Write your representatives and tell them to get on the fediverse/mastodon. It’s about time we didn’t rely on billionaires to communicate with our government! I just sent the mayor, and my district supervisor a physical letter and an email!
Society organizes itself. It just does. There is NO circumstance where there is no "government" even if it means the strongest thug telling everyone what to do. Anyone trying to tell you government is bad wants to BE the government.
EVERYTHING done in society is organized by government. The rules for markets are government. The rules for weights are government. Money is government.
Government COULD just do everything in society. /1
Finnish interior minister resigns, after even the president agreed that having a minister who advocates nazi symbolisms among other direct connections with white supremacists is ”awkward” for Finland’s reputation abroad.
🧵I know I mostly toot about #Ukraine here, but the #SCOTUS has got me annoyed. More than they usually irritate me. People in my generation (elder #millennial), #GenX'ers, and #Boomers, mostly grew up with a court that's legacy was in many ways progressive. As a result, most folks respected & trusted the SCOTUS as an institution, especially when compared to the other branches of #government. #Watergate, #Clinton's #impeachment, & various #bribery & #misconduct scandals in #congress 1/n
Cue rant: I hate the term, "single-payer" even more than #MedicareForAll
It's meaningless to most people because it's jargon. Really, it is. #Ingsoc absolutely approves it.
Informing people using clear, direct, jargon-free language is something the #Democrats, specifically, and much of the #left in general, have failed at my entire 65 years.
"#Government provided (or paid or both)" or something like that.
Please provide me with arguments about why this is a good idea. I have a tenuous understanding of Canadian law and am leaning towards it not being a good idea.
It isn't a good idea. It's a #terrible idea that #politicians in #Canada latched on to to show they're "standing up to big US tech companies", and which the big Canadian #media backed as (what they thought would be) a big cash cow.
I'm 100% with you that the #government has no business deciding what qualifies as "#news".
Canadian media companies are going to see their traffic drop 50-80% - including the ones with no seat at the negotiating table.
I think we're on the same page here. I think bill C-18 is ludicrous and self-destructive and contrary to how the 'net/web has worked from its inception.
I await opposition of #MAGA types to the improvements planned in the #infrastructure bill. It is ideal ground for conspiracy theories. Improving internet speed? Just a way to enhance #government spying. Rebuilding a bridge? Government trucks and tanks can now enter you city without risk. Better airport? A better base of operations for operation of military aircraft.
For me, one of the hallmarks of the MAGA base is their ability to create conspiracies that act against their own self-interest.
#Egypt targeting to move all govt ministries from #Cairo to as-yet-unnamed "#NewAdministrativeCapital" (#NAC) this month. Parliament and president apparently not planning to move yet.
It's also unclear what exactly it means for a govt ministry to have "already moved" to NAC - some reporting suggests HQs have officially moved but most work is still happing at old sites.
"In the weeks since threatening to cause a global economic crisis over their avowed desire to reduce deficits, #Republican lawmakers are again pushing legislation that would increase deficits.
"Unlike most kinds of #government spending, each dollar spent on the IRS leads to much more than a dollar flowing back into government coffers, especially when the #IRS would use that funding to collect unpaid taxes...
Logical arguments against the state are more powerful than appeals to morality.
The state's existence relies on an illogical premise: namely, that one group of rational agents arbitrarily have rights that another group of rational agents do not.
Folks forget we have empirical data showing that U.S. policy correlates to elite and business policy preferences, and is uncorrelated to non-elite and mass-interest group policy preferences.
Policy is not necessarily antagonistic to those latter groups, it simply is oblivious to them.
TORONTO — Meta said Thursday that it plans to follow through with a threat to block Canadians from sharing news on its platforms, after the federal government passed a law requiring digital firms to pay domestic media organizations for their content.
The #government proposed a policy requiring #Meta (and others) to pay to #link to #Canadian#news sources. Then they passed an act implementing it.
So Meta has a choice to make: they can continue to link to Canadian news sites and pay this "link #tax", or they can stop linking to Canadian news sites. There is no third option.
Canadian #politicians and #media cannot claim it is wrong for Meta to choose the second option; can't have it both ways.
#DOT Researchers Suggested a Way to Make Big #Trucks Safer.
After Meeting With Lobbyists, Agency Officials Rejected the Idea.
The Department of Transportation allowed #trucking lobbyists to review an unpublished report recommending a #safety device that could save lives by preventing #pedestrians & #cyclists from getting crushed under large trucks.
“PLEASE delete any mention of a recommendation to develop … any regulation,” the DOT supervisor wrote in an email.
"By the time of its release in 2020, the report had been dramatically rewritten, stripped of its key conclusions — including the need to federally mandate side guards...
Orkney could leave UK for Norway as it explores ‘alternative governance’ (www.theguardian.com)
Island council leader cites ‘deep cultural relationship’, as authority considers a report looking at status of Channel Islands and Faroes
UK PM Sunak dealt blow as court rules Rwanda deportation plan unlawful (www.cnbc.com)
The three senior appeal court judges ruled, by a majority, that Rwanda could not be treated as a safe third country.