rarely can see so clearly what is the essence of politics and in the battle over taxes. Minority won and lost most
Loss
A crisis situation is, of course, one where normality is lost and with very negative consequences. However, this disappearance of normality can also be used to try to create a new situation than the loss. That could happen in Mexico in fiscal matters, but it was not. Coping with the disaster of public finances could lead the government, in an act of desperation to try the "flight forward" or a substantive tax reform, postponed for half a century. Unfortunately neither the federal government, or governors, Congress, the parties or the "powers" fell short. Thus, our economic disaster only served to reinforce what was already wrong. Again, the Mexican political class failed to live up to their circumstances.
The nature of politics in practice
What we just witnessed in the Congress on the development and adoption of the Revenue Act for next year is only an indicator, but very significant, what is the essence of politics here or in any other place and time. And if the show was bizarre from start to finish and highly unsatisfactory result for the average citizen, this was due to the nature of Mexican politics is equally grotesque, unsatisfactory, corrupt and openly biased in favor of privileged minorities.
Once again it became clear that those in control of the structures of power in Mexico, most importantly, the only important thing is the short-term and personal gain, or at most, of the small group which fought the hard struggle for access to public office and the management of government funds. Now, in addition, in the manufacture of fiscal policy are also important rewards or punishments that may give interest groups and pressure to those legislators acting or resist their demands. A definition
In 1935 Harold D. Lasswell, an American political scientist, published "in the Great Depression and reflecting it-a book whose title was also a definition: Policy or who gets what, how and when. A couple of decades later, David Easton, Canadian political scientist at the University of Chicago, developed a different definition very similar policy but within a theoretical framework "Systems analysis" and now comes in handy to explain what is happening with the Mexican fiscal policy. Eastoniana perspective, politics is the set of processes by which those who control the institutions of public authority must decide how to assign or allocate the scarce resources available to society. From this perspective, it is politics, not the economy that decides what is left for the market mechanism-the so-called invisible hand-allocated and what the very visible hand of the state distributes directly.
resources to be distributed by the authority are basically but not exclusively, materials. However, the most bitter political struggle takes place in the process to extract directly a part of the wealth of society-Revenue Act to give to the authority for the use-it-budget for their maintenance and reproduction and the remaining turn it into goods and services for the community to obtain their support. Obviously, in this process there are always those who earn more than they lose and vice versa: this is just the heart of politics, power struggles and the ever-present class struggle.
The starting point
In the current Mexican context, and to understand the stark fiscal policy, it must begin with the fact that part of society, but significant minority still does not recognize the legitimacy of those who are responsible for the initiative to prepare the scheme of tax collection. The origin of this rejection of the authority structure was the way it conducted the 2006 presidential elections, which did not correspond neither the letter nor the spirit of fair electoral competition. Time has passed but the aggrieved party does not accept the outcome of the election, hence the strength of his opposition to the tax package that was presented to Congress.
Another decisive factor to explain what just happened in the legislative chambers is that the Mexican Treasury is particularly weak. If discounted oil resources, taxes only if they represent 10 percent of GDP, low proportion in the global context. That is why since the end of 1970 a strategic natural resource and non-renewable oil, has been using in the worst way possible: to finance current expenditure. However, the low production and oil prices have meant that it no longer input than previously.
the Treasury's inability to meet its obligations, you are missing around 300 billion pesos a year, also due to the disastrous effects on the Mexican economy in the world economic crisis that erupted in 2008. And these effects-a drop in GDP of 7 percent this years, have been so hard for several reasons, including the decision to Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico to join a single international market: the American. When in 2008 the U.S. economy came under, Mexican, and badly damaged, but followed the disaster magnified by their intrinsic weakness and mismanagement of a government that believed "armored" (?). Justice
Deciding who pays or fails to pay what taxes depends on the balance of power within the political system. Today the federal government control by the PAN, the PRI dominated state governments increasingly take up more tax revenue (38 percent) and control of the PAN and the PRI of Congress make those two games, which has long represented the interests of economically powerful groups, have decided to shift the burden of a tax increase in classes and political groups and economically weaker sections: in the vast majority.
Equality for unequal and more
The government proposed and succeeded after some pushing and shoving that the PAN and the PRI to accept an increase in VAT, a tax as unfair because they pay the uneven but relatively easy to collect and manage- an increase in the ISR and few more. But the really important thing was that, surprisingly, in the midst of debate, Felipe Calderón publicly accepted what had long been identified as Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to four hundred large conglomerates pay little or no income tax, using an unjust law, since it can be used by the large employer and not per taxpayer common: to bring together the profits of a business with their other losses to exit "tables" and also differ for years paying taxes to achieve, in some cases cancellation. Calderon AMLO did not name but yes, using data from the BMV: CEMEX, Carso, Televisa, Maseca, Banamex, Bancomer, Banorte, HSBC, Inbursa, Kimberly Clark, Bimbo, Walmart, FEMSA, and so on.
Calderon made the complaint of the lack of solidarity from the very rich, but even there it was, it did not propose any remedy, it can and should do so. On the other hand, emphasizing continued privileges lawmakers proposing that those who will benefit from the new concessions spectrum-an asset that belongs to us all, are not charged anything at first, which they give away more than 5 billion pesos. Conclusion
In theory, taxes should be done first, as a moral duty of the citizen: an act of solidarity with the community, which has the most is the largest contributor. However, in Mexico that argument is impossible to sustain. First, by inefficiency and corruption of the authorities. Second, because the tax structure itself is, as income distribution, a notice of "a monument to" the lack of collective solidarity. An indicator that tells us that 200 years into the independence movement, the essence of the colonial era remains largely intact, and that Mexico is a structure of social, political and economic designed, first, to exploit of the many by the few.
0 comments:
Post a Comment