세금 퍼주기 정책'에 대한 반응

펀드빌더 (조갑제닷컴 회원)  

  2일 연합뉴스의 <내년 근로장려금 5조 가까이 지급한다…올해 대비 3.6배로↑>라는 보도에 대한 반응(댓글)들. 
  
  ¶'5년 동안 22조로 4대강 하면서 일자리 100만 개 만든 명박이가 100배는 더 유능했던 것 같다.'
  ¶'결국, 문재인과 그 패당들의 롤 모델이 '베네수엘라'였구나. 그래도, 베네수엘라는 석유라도 난다지만…'
  ¶'국민들한테 일할 여건 만들어 줘라. 최저임금 올리지 말고 주 52시간 없애면 모든 문제 해결된다. 아직 먼 선진국 가는 길인데 무슨 벌써부터 선진국 흉내를 내고 겉치레하게 만드냐.'
  ¶'열심히 일하며 사는 근로자들만 병신 만드는 정책이다. 그냥 힘 안들이고 적게 벌고 살면 나라가 돈주고…개고생해서 열심히 돈 벌면 병신되는 세상이다.'
  ¶'퍼주는 정책 외에는 아이템이 없는 무능한 정부.'
  ¶'세금 이렇게 막 퍼주니 영세민, 차상위 계층에서 벗어나려 하지 않고 나라에서 주는 혜택을 자랑스러워 한다. 이 나라는 어중간하게 밥먹고 사는 것보다 대충 놀며 하위계층으로 사는 게 현명하다.'
  ¶'저는 지금 개인 1人 사업자입니다. 지난 번에 10명 직원 가지고 있는 법인이었습니다. 직원 무서워서 누가 주 5일에 토요일 일 안하는 날까지 급여를 부여했는지 최저임금에 209 곱하면 월급 나오지요. 약 159만 원 정도 나오죠. 거기에 한 달 한번은 의무적으로 휴가 안 주면 경찰에 신고하는 경우가 많았습니다. 직원들 20대 중반 30대 초반 결국 인건비 주다가 발주 두 달 정도 없어서 말아먹고, 혼자 개인사업하고 있습니다. 직원 없고 혼자 먹고 사는 게 정말 세상 편하네요. 저도 근로장려금 대상입니다. 돈 준다는데 받아야죠. 하지만 나라는 망하겠네요.'
  ¶'일자리는 못 만들고 국민들에게 배급해 주는구나.'
  ¶'경제는 나 몰라라. 왜 부모님이 문재인 찍으면 나라 망한다고 했는지 이제 알겠다. 어른들 말 잘들으면 자다가도 떡이 생긴다는 말. 아버지 어머니 죄송합니다.'
  ¶'지금 근로장려금 혜택 받으면서 구직활동하는 청년입니다. 솔직히 저거 눈먼 돈입니다. 취업알선 업체들 국가지원금 받으면서 배만 불려줍니다. 그리고 월 3개월 30만원만 지급합니다. 푼돈이자 눈먼 돈인 이유는 간단합니다. 30만 원만 받고 공무원 준비하는 사람들 많습니다.'
  ¶'내가 아는 미용실 원장 현금결재 세금 포탈하고 나라에서 근로장려금 해마다 받아 그 돈으로 해외여행가더라. 진정 참 좋은 복지…좋은 나라인 건가?'
  ¶'이 자식들이 국민세금 걷어서 국가발전 쓰는 것이 아니라, 표를 얻기 위해 국고금으로 표를 매수하려 하는구나! 바로 사전 선거법 위반이요, 선거 자금법 위반이다. 선관위나 국회는 정부를 고발해야 하고 검찰은 엄정수사해서 처벌하라!'
  ¶'카이스트 경제학 교수가 소득주도 성장은 '반경제학적 궤변'이라 함! 어떻게 이런 치졸한 이론이 경제지식인들의 비판없이 나라경제 정책으로 시행되고 있는지 의문.'
  ¶'세금으로 퍼주는 것도 짜증나는데, 이 정부 진짜 생각 없군. 홑벌이 가구는 260만 원, 맞벌이 가구는 300만 원…이런 식이면 맞벌이 가구 최저시급 받고 둘이 일하면 300만 원 무조건 넘으니까 탈락이네. 그럼 한 명 그만두고 근로장려금 타겠지. 실업자 만드는 거 부추기고, 나라 돈 새고…'
  ¶'일하는 장려금이 아니라, 일 안하는 장려금. 한 달 내내 일하는 사람들 돈 뺏어서 일주일에 한두 번 일하는 사람에게 주는 게 잘하는 것일까.'
  ¶'최저시급 받으면서 잔업 야근한 사람은 안주고, 어영부영 알바 뛰는 사람들만 챙기냐? 뭔 일을 이렇게 엿 같이 하냐.'
  ¶'탈세하는 자영업자들이 근로장려금 다 받음. 월세 살면서 일용직으로 소득 약간 넘는다고 한 푼도 못 받았는데 자영업하는 사람들은 다 받더라. 결국 소득 숨기는 자영업자들이나 받는 게 근로장려금.'
  ¶'전세계에서 가장 근면성실한 대한민국 국민성을 세금이나 쳐다보는 게으른 국민성으로 개조하는 중

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베네수엘라의 파괴적인 가격 통제에서 얻는 교훈

 

베네수엘라의 물자 결핍은 유가의 하락 때문이 아니라, 가격 통제와 하이퍼인플레 때문이다. 가격 통제는 기아와 전반적인 가난을 몰고 왔다. 사회주의 파산으로 가는 첫 번째 단계는 정부의 가격 통제이다.

일반적으로 남미에서 강력히 가격을 통제하는 지도자가 있다면, 그 나라는 신속하게 사회주의 파산을 향해 달려가고 있다고 볼 수 있다.

 

Lessons from Venezuela’s devastating price controls

 

Despite their recent experience of wide-scale food shortages, hyperinflation, and the vilest tyranny, many Venezuelans still believe —mirabile dictu —in the possibility of a good version of state socialism.

 

A recent example appeared in the Washington Post, where journalist Francisco Toro argued that Venezuela’s collapse cannot be attributed to state socialism alone because other socialist governments in South America did not bring about a similar humanitarian calamity.

 

Toro mentions presidents Ollanta Humala in Peru (2011-2016) and Evo Morales in Bolivia (in power since 2006) as examples of 21st century state socialists who have overseen economic growth and significant reductions in poverty. They can even handle a country’s finances with prudence, he affirms.

 

Sadly, Toro, like many of his countrymen, has failed to understand what state socialism actually is despite its destruction of his native land. In Venezuela, 21st Century Socialists, borrowing heavily from their 20th century predecessors, wrecked what was once Latin America’s most prosperous economy by taking what we might call the Seven Steps toward Socialist Ruin. These are:

 

1. Destroy the price mechanism with price controls

 

2. Nationalize the economy’s “commanding heights”

 

3. Print money without restraint, destroy the currency

 

4. Block citizens’ access to foreign currency

 

5. Heedlessly run up the deficit and the national debt

 

6. Constantly increase wages by fiat

 

7. Put the militaryin charge of central economic planning

 

It would take far too much space to comment on each step in detail, but it is worth dwelling on price controls since Hugo Chávez applied them fairly early on in his presidency.

 

The marvelous thing about prices, economist Friedrich von Hayek wrote, is that no human being consciously designs them. Much like language or the market itself, a price arises unaided and, with a simple unit of money, it drastically simplifies the interplay between very complex processes, for instance rising transport costs, the shortage of raw materials and consumers’ subjective valuation of a product.

 

One way to destroy the spontaneous price mechanism is for the government to impose artificially determined prices on producers. As Ludwig von Mises, Hayek’s mentor, explained, prices set by diktat with no real relation to production costs and fixed below market levels create scarcity. In the case of milk, for instance, price controls will motivate producers hoping to avoid losses to stop selling their product. The result is less milk in the market and higher prices (in the black market) for that which is available.

 

In 2003, Hugo Chávez declared war on “speculators” and imposed price controls not only on Venezuelan milk, but also on sugar, coffee, beef, chicken, pork, grain, and pasta (he also severely restricted access to foreign currency). According to very unreliable official figures, price controls caused shortages of basic goods to increase from 5% at the outset to over 22.2% in ten years.

 

Chávez, however, refused to learn the lesson about the price mechanism even as he was unleashing mass scarcity. In 2011, he extended price controls to soap, detergent, shampoo, toilet paper, mouthwash, fruit juice and other products. To take one example, toilet paper was already scarce in Venezuela when Chávez died in 2013, as the government imported 50 million rolls and citizens, downtrodden but not without a sense of humour, shared videos on social media with theories on how to get by without it.

 

In 2016, scarcity of basic goods reached 82.6% in Caracas according to Luis Vicente León, the head of polling firm Datanalisis. Caracas, León added, was Venezuela’s best-supplied city. Scarcity has only worsened since.

 

Initially, the Venezuelan regime made up for shortages in national food production with imports paid with oil revenue. However, price controls and expropriations (see point # 2) had already destroyed the country’s productive sector once oil prices began to fall sharply in 2014. Last year, 93% of Venezuelans could not afford food. According to a recent survey, 60% of Venezuelans shed at least 11 kilograms in weight during the last year due to malnutrition. Contrary to what certain apologists would claim, this is not due to the fall in oil prices but rather to price controls and hyperinflation (see point # 3).

 

As Mises wrote, even if totalitarian socialists have good intentions in setting up price controls—namely making food cheap for the poor—the outcome is always the exact opposite. In Venezuela, price controls have brought about hunger and widespread misery.

 

One of the reasons why Peru and Bolivia have been spared a similar ordeal is because their leaders, regardless of their rhetoric or their political affiliation, have either fully skipped the first of the Seven Steps towards Socialist Ruin or have been far less adamant than Chávez in its use.

 

Humala, despite his initial affinity with Chavismo, did not govern as a state socialist. Rather, he generally respected and upheld what the Cato Institute’s Ian Vásquez described as Peru’s “increasingly successful market democracy.” In terms of free trade, Humala did not seriously undermine his country’s position in the Index of Economic Freedom, where Peru remained among the world’s top 50 free economies during his term (falling from place 28 in 2011 to 43 in 20015). Crucially, Humala did not interfere with the Peruvian constitution’s mandate that prices be left alone unless there are indications of market failure. This suggests that his concern for the poor was genuine.

 

Evo Morales, on the other hand, is far more similar to Chávez at first glance since he has made anti-Yankee imperialism a pillar of his government. He has established a vicious autocracy by persecuting the media, rewriting the constitution in order to stay in power, and even ignoring a referendum result that banned him from seeking reelection. His economic measures, however, tell a slightly different story.

 

In 2008, Morales imposed a maximum price for soy, sugar, sorghum, beef, and alcohol while banning the export of these products from Bolivia. When businesses, facing losses, cut back on production, the country faced shortages and was forced to import these goods. Morales, however, reacted in 2017 by reaching an agreement with producers and liberalizing the market.

 

Although Morales announced that liberalization was based upon a promise of “fair” internal prices, in fact he was recognizing that the only fair price is the market price. Whereas Chávez doubled down on price controls despite irrefutable evidence of their failure, Morales—at least in this instance—learned from his mistake and allowed market forces to save his country from widespread scarcity.

 

According to Bolivian economist Mauricio Ríos García, Morales has been very selective with price controls, implementing them when politically convenient but quickly getting rid of them once the inevitable consequences are out of hand. Contrary to what Toro claims, Morales’ example does not prove that socialism works in some instances; it only suggests that the Bolivian strongman, like Che Guevara t-shirt sellers, is skilled at marketing collectivism while yielding, however reluctantly, to the benefits of market forces.

 

Toro further comments that the Kirchners in Argentina, whom he calls “socialists in-all-but-name,” “ran the economy so poorly they very nearly brought about a Venezuelan-style collapse.” The reason they did so is because they faithfully applied steps 3 to 6 of the socialist program since 2003 (advancing also on point # 2.)

 

In 2013, Cristina Kirchner, faced with (self-inflicted) uncontrolled inflation, imposed price controls on 500 products in 50 cities, claiming that the initiative came from producers and sellers. Naturally, shortages ensued in stores while power outages increased. The reason for the latter, states Marcelo Duclos of Argentina’s Friedrich Naumann Foundation, was that the Kirchners, in twelve years of government (2003-20015), left in place subsidized prices of utilities services set in 2002.

 

Add to this the foreign exchange controls, which had caused a dollar scarcity and hence a shortage of materials for production, and you find that Argentina was indeed turning into Venezuela. It could not have been otherwise because they had taken the same measures, one of the most nefarious being price controls.

 

As a general rule, if you find a Latin American “revolutionary” leader aggressively controlling prices. you will discover a country speeding toward state socialist ruin.

 

Daniel Raisbeck is a Fellow of IFT, and founder of Movimiento Libertario, Colombia

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