Adam Bandt’s fiscal fruitiness threatens to take root, by Nick Cater.

The release of the Greens economic policy inspires nostalgia for the days when greenies spent their days hugging turtles and lungfish. What’s an unbuilt dam or three compared with bulldozing the entire economy?

Today they campaign for a compassionate, caring and fairer society, which is code for taxing, spending and taxing some more.

“To make society more equal we need to pay more tax, starting at the top,” Greens economic spokesman Adam Bandt declared last week, adding the Greens were opposed to any form of tax cuts.

The problem with socialism, Margaret Thatcher famously remarked, is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. Bandt is determined to prove her wrong. Once this generation has been squeezed dry, he’ll move on to the next one by borrowing money it will have to repay one day.

A merry romp through some foibles of the Greens and ALP. Read it all.

Cater notes an insight that echoes the US experience:

All this [Greens, ALP] makes perfect sense to those who live off the public purse within 10km of the CBD.

For those in economic sectors that are obliged to make a profit, however, the modern progressive mindset is utterly perplexing. …

[The ALP and Green’s] real aim is not the relief of poverty but pumping up the government services that many of them are employed to provide. They want more middle-class welfare in the form of childcare, free health and schools.