News & Views item - January 2006

 

 

Angelides Vows to Roll Back Student Fees at Universities  --  ALP Urges Tax Relief for Poor Singles. (January 14, 2006)

    "Who the Hell's Angelides?" Labor MP Craig Emerson asked.

 

Well he might've asked had he actually read the header in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

 

It all has to do with the California Democrat Phil Angelides who wants to challenge the current Governator of the state Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger and make the cost of higher education in California a central issue in the campaign for governor

 

Angelides the state's treasurer says, "The governor will say times are tough, someone's got to sacrifice, [but] he's not asking any big corporations to sacrifice. He hasn't asked any millionaires to sacrifice."

 

The Union-Tribune goes on to report:

Angelides wants to reduce fees and freeze them at 2003 levels when Schwarzenegger became governor. He said he would expand university enrollment to allow 20,000 more students to attend, increase student tuition grants and double the number of counselors in high schools.

 

Angelides said his plan would mean a $500 reduction over two years for a community college student, $2,000 over four years for a California State University student and $5,000 over four years for a University of California student.

 

"The governor makes a big deal about how he'll never raise taxes," Angelides said. "But the fact is he's raised community college fees, state college fees, university fees. It is a tax."

But it is also true that Angelides was vague about how he would pay for his plan, whose cost he estimated at US$1.6 billion a year; however, he did say he would "close corporate tax loopholes" and "ask the wealthy to pay a little more."

 

Here on the other side of the Pacific the federal opposition may not see matters in quite the same light as Mr Angelides, perhaps its a matter of  "beware of Greeks baring gifts," but Dr Emerson, who holds a PhD in economics from ANU and has been Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Trade and Tourism and Shadow Minister for Workplace Relations and Public Service, seems now to have been detailed off to clothe the federal Treasurer, Peter Costello in the garb of Scrooge McDuck as a high priority.

 

According to the ABC, Dr Emerson is demanding the Federal Government provide tax relief for low and middle-income earners, with new research showing the group faces a rising tax burden. "There should be tax relief up and down the income scale but with priority for low and middle-income earners," he said. "And the budget can afford it - there's a prospective $12 billion surplus but Peter Costello doesn't have low and middle-income earners as a priority."

 

Matters of allocating the surplus for example to bettering the nations higher education sector or health services don't seem to have rated a mention which is of interest considering the 51 year old economist would have gone through university during and just after the Whitlam years and ought to have some idea of what's required to further the wellbeing of the nation.

 

Did someone mutter "P o p u l i s t".