WHAT a liar. What an incompetent. What a spendthrift, now demanding we all dig deeper to bail her out.
"There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead," promised Prime Minister Julia Gillard before the election.
But there was. An utterly pointless tax that's costing jobs without cutting the temperature.
"We'll bring the Budget to surplus in 2012-13, exactly as promised," Gillard said in 2011.
But she won't. We're getting our sixth straight mega-deficit next month, even though government revenue this year has gone up more than 7 per cent.
"I have in the past ruled out a levy and I will do it again now," said Gillard in December when asked how on Earth - after racking up $172 billion in deficits already - Labor would now pay for her disability scheme.
But yesterday Gillard said a levy is what we'll get - a 0.5 per cent hit on your income, meaning even people on only $30,000 a year will pay this Government another 41 cents a day.
This is just "an increase in the Medicare levy", declared Gillard yesterday.
Fooled you. What Gillard announced yesterday was actually a new tax with a prettier name so you think you're helping sick Australians, not a dead-loss Prime Minister.
"The Government today announces changes to the Medicare levy to build a better life for Australians with significant and permanent disability," Gillard said yesterday.
More deceit. The Government needs more taxes to help pay for not just its disability scheme but for everything else it's using borrowed billions to fund - like its global warming schemes, its boat people disaster, its NBN white elephant and the thousands of extra public servants it's hired.
The disability scheme is just the one bit of spending it's plucked out for a levy, like a panhandler claiming the donations he's living off will go to "homeless youth".
The Government's done this before, of course. Remember its "flood levy" two years ago? Note that it never asks you for a "boat people levy" instead?
"This reform will provide peace of mind to all Australians that if they or a loved one acquire a disability, they will be supported," assured Gillard yesterday.
The biggest of Gillard's deceits - or lies - yesterday.
This new tax will do no such thing. It will raise $3.3 billion a year towards a disability scheme, which the Australian Government Actuary estimates will cost an extra $10.5 billion a year by the time it's fully operational.
THAT'S right. This levy pays for only a third of the scheme at a time when the Government is racking up massive debts and the economy is slowing.
Anyone who thinks the levy guarantees the Government's scheme is a fool.
To give the guarantee she claims, Gillard would have to impose a levy of 1.5 per cent - or about $3 a day for every Australian on average earnings.
"I will be asking the nation . . . to make sure that we support disability care," Gillard insisted yesterday.
Not so fast, Prime Spinner.
How to support disability care isn't the first item of business.
First ask our forgiveness for running out of money in a mining boom.
Beg our forgiveness for leading a party so incompetent as to have spent almost $200 billion more than it has earned, yet still so reckless that it would rather raise taxes than cut spending.
Beg our forgiveness for having no money left - despite a record tax take in a growing economy - so you can't even pay for proper disability care without announcing there will be more new taxes under a government you lead.
And beg our forgiveness for all the lies. All that insulting spin and all those broken promises.
Maybe some voters will then agree to give you another chance on September 14. Myself, I cannot think of a single reason you should be free to fool us again. In fact, I fear what you may yet do in the months you have left.
How much more can you waste of the billions you say you don't have for the disabled - unless we pay even more for your wastrel ways?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/why-should-we-bail-julia-gillard-out/story-e6frfhqf-1226633372151
