Richard Boyd Barrett: 'Austerity Hawks' Slashed EU Health Budget

Yeah, I think the references to the frugal four or five or even the stingy four or five are too kind. What these people are, are the hawks of austerity and neoliberalism and the difference between the fact that there's these hawks of neoliberalism and austerity have won a significant battle is indicated by the EU for health budget which was initially projected at being over nine billion euro and after the negotiations concluded was reduced down to just over one billion euro and this EU for health project was supposed to be the big response to COVID-19. So the people who pushed for that and allowed that budget for health and the need for a dramatic response across Europe to a global health pandemic to be axed to almost nothing makes it clear that the people who run Europe have learned nothing from the health pandemic. that continues to threaten Europe and the world they've learned less than nothing in deciding to ax that budget and just that budget was for stockpiles of things like ventilators, it was for investing and resourcing public health services across Europe, that we should change in response to COVID-19 and then gone, axed in favour of loans and what is the difference between loans and grants, loans are about us financing the recovery of Europe by borrowing from rich people. and allowing rich people and allowing rich people to profit from those loans, that's what borrowing is, when we borrow you know sometimes you imagine it's some sort of abstract activity, it's borrowing from already rich people and paying them interest, the alternative is direct funding funded by progressive taxation, where the rich people pay some additional tax, like maybe a digital tax, like maybe a financial transaction tax, and we use that money, and we use that money, and we use that money to invest in things like health, and housing, and infrastructure, and educational capacity, and childcare. That's the difference between these two things and it is clear that the austerity neoliberal hawks who want to disarm us in the face of a global pandemic, and indeed they were doing it before with the 10 years of austerity, have won out. And our government's claims to object to that agenda are completely undermined by the fact that we are the worst foot draggers when it comes to actually imposing some taxes on these very wealthy interests who constantly avoid tax, we are the ones who are blocking, opposing digital taxes, we are the ones who do not want a financial transaction tax, we are the ones who act as a tax haven for some of the biggest tax avoiders and most wealthy corporations in the world. So our concern if you like about the frugal five, the austerity hawks is hollow in the extreme. And I think it's terribly important because all of this reflects then on our own July stimulus, and what's coming up. You see all the discussion is about the stimulation of business. Now don't get me wrong, a million people whose employment depends on SMEs, we need to protect and sustain those jobs, absolutely. But why is it we do not understand that investing in health, education, childcare and infrastructure is not just absolutely urgently required to deal with the post COVID world, but it is in itself a stimulus. In fact, it is the basis of a sustainable, transformed economy in the post COVID world. It was needed before COVID, but now it is absolutely a matter of urgency to invest in a health care system, which means recruiting people, so we can deal with COVID, resourcing our educational system, which is desperately overcrowded, having a childcare system that works, having a nursing home care sector that works. That is both a good thing for society, but it is also an economic stimulus and a far more sustainable one that would move us to a more sustainable economic and social model. That'sbye when www.the topic.com.au . . . .