The Annual Surplus

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shnaek

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I was reading an article in the Echo yesterday where a labour senator was demanding that we spend the surplus 1.5 billion that the government have sloshing about on hospitals and that The Annual Surplus would pay for the extra staff needed year on year. The annual surplus! What the hell is that? Where was the annual surplus back in the 1980's?
Though I would be happy to see a change in government, this sort of nonsense from the opposition really scares me.
 
shnaek said:
I was reading an article in the Echo yesterday where a labour senator was demanding that we spend the surplus 1.5 billion that the government have sloshing about on hospitals and that The Annual Surplus would pay for the extra staff needed year on year. The annual surplus! What the hell is that? Where was the annual surplus back in the 1980's?
Though I would be happy to see a change in government, this sort of nonsense from the opposition really scares me.
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It's that sort of nonsense that has kept this government in power for so long. It's not that people are happy with what they have, far from it, but the alternative look worse!
 
shnaek said:
The annual surplus! What the hell is that? Where was the annual surplus back in the 1980's?
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See here for an explanation of the surplus. As our economic situation now is just slightly different to the 1980's, I've no idea why you seem to expect everything to remain the same.

I didn't see the article in question so I can't comment on the rest of your concerns.
 
I think the point Shnaek is making is that it should not be regarded as an annual surplus. While we may have a surplus now much of it is due to increases in taxes associated with property transactions and may not be sustainable over the long term.

To commit to annual spending based on a surplus which is attributable to taxes which may not be received on an annual basis is setting ourselves up for deficits in the future.

I think it would be better to put the surplus away for the future by
a) Paying down national debt (increases borrowing power in the future though this is also constrained by Eurozone annual deficit limits albeit ones everyone else seems to ignore)
b) Pay more into the Pensions Reserve Fund
c) Create another fund along the lines of the Pensions Reserve for Capital Infrastructure projects. That way if in 5 years we are half way through Transport 21 and the exchequer finances are too tight to pay for elements of it this fund could be drawn on to help complete the projects. We could also accelerate some of this capital spending but in light of the tight supply of construction capacity this might just contribute to construction inflation.
 
In all fairness, we'd need to see the full original article referred to by the OP before jumping to conclusions.
 
the bit I dont understand is that 2/3 times a year the government announce that the 'surplus' is bigger than expected/anticipated/last year etc due to increased revenue/bouyancy/underspending by government departments. etc and we , joe public, are expected to be happy with this situation. in other words we are are expected to share in 'their' joy that we are being overtaxed. beats me.
 
cuchulainn said:
the bit I dont understand is that 2/3 times a year the government announce that the 'surplus' is bigger than expected/anticipated/last year etc due to increased revenue/bouyancy/underspending by government departments. etc and we , joe public, are expected to be happy with this situation. in other words we are are expected to share in 'their' joy that we are being overtaxed. beats me.
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Or that they cannot spend it in a structured and effecient way
 
proabably not the the place for it but anyone else give any thought to when the ssia's are all matured and the tax refunds no longer have to applied to the various ssia policys? by my reckoning after 2007 there should be approx 1 million ( number of ssia policies) multiplied by €600+ (annual refund ) spare tax revenue to distribute amoung us tax payers. or am I on my own on that one?
 
RainyDay said:
See here for an explanation of the surplus. As our economic situation now is just slightly different to the 1980's, I've no idea why you seem to expect everything to remain the same.

I didn't see the article in question so I can't comment on the rest of your concerns.
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dam099 is correct in his opinion. My sarcasm has been badly missed! My point was that there is no such thing as ‘The Annual Surplus’. To speak of such a thing is to be ignorant of the way things work. The original article is in last Thursday’s Echo – which is not available on line.
So let me be clear – my point is that ‘The Annual Surplus’ is no more real than ‘The Leprechaun’, and for a political party member to suggest that it exists is stupid at best, and perhaps even dangerous to the future health of the Irish economy.
 
shnaek said:
and perhaps even dangerous to the future health of the Irish economy.
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There's nothing "perhaps" about it. It shows frightening ignorance and stupidity!
 
Yep - Your sarcasm was missed. I'm guessing that you are now saying that there is a surplus this year, but we may not have a surplus next year. In order to give any sensible view on your complaint, you really should post more specifics of what recommendations were made in the original article.
 
I will see if I can get the article from my pile of recyclables at home this evening. The thrust of the article was the good senator complaining (legitimately) about the state of the health system. He was pointing out that the government (us) are 'awash' with cash and the government (we) should spend this cash on new hospital beds. He then went on to say that 'the annual surplus' would pay for staff for these extra beds year on year.

My origional point was that there is no such thing as an annual surplus. There is just the balance at the end of the year - be it surplus or deficit. It was deficit for a very long time.

So to read a senator to using a term like 'the annual surplus' really shocked me. It shocked me so much that despite the fact that I think the clowns that run the place on our behalf at the moment are making an art of doing nothing about everything, I could not in good conscience vote in a party who's higher ranks speak of 'the annual surplus' as if such a thing existed - in effect basing their health policy on such a notion.
 
I agree completely with you shnake. It frightens me when governments commit to long-term expenditure based on current buoyant tax receipts. The fact is that we (the exchequer) are awash with cash on the back of taxes on capital acquisition (stamp duty), VAT on property and the building industry and transient MNC's that will shag off to the Far East at the drop of a hat (just like they arrived in the first place).
Having said that Benchmarking was the same thing (in effect), so this government hasn't much of a track record.
The other reason for voting them out is that it's not good for democracy for one party to be in power for so long, but that's a different topic.
 
I'm guessing that the article in question was by Senator Brendan Ryan. Senator Ryan does not make health (or other) policy for Labour. But all this is speculation until we can see the original article.
 
Can I post the origional article? I would have thought I'd be in breach of copyright were I to scan it, or even type it here. If that's not the case then I'll scan it - though I don't know about typing the whole thing!
 
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