The Christian Democratic party struck another nail in the Alliance coffin today when it
- One: said it would oppose the elimination of the extra wealth tax (värnskatt), a suggestion put forward, and pushed through in the 2020 budget, by KD’s former fellow alliance parties, the Center and Liberal parties, and even its current friend the Moderate party, and
- Two: said it wouldn’t bother writing up a shadow budget together with the Moderate party.
Not liking the elimination of the extra wealth tax is pretty common. After all, it gives a huge tax break to the people who least need a tax break. It shouldn’t be forgotten, however, that the tax was supposed to be temporary, and, it was based on a crisis in the Swedish economy that has since been more than cleared up. The extra wealth tax has no legitimacy because the factors for which it was set up to help out with no longer exist. By all means, tax wealthy people because they’re wealthy if that seems fair to people, but at least be honest about it.
Right now, the extra wealth tax goes straight into the ginormous tax pot that the ruling parties can use as they will, without saying anything more specific. The Christian Democrats are saying no to its elimination because they – like no one else, they say – would use the money exclusively for health and welfare.
This would be great if the Christian Democrats had any say whatsoever in where the governments spends your tax money, but they don’t. They’re saying it to to look good, but it in fact what they’re saying has all the value of a selfie. It’s likely also a jab at the Center and Liberal parties for cooperating with the Social Democrats and Green parties. Here the Christian Democrats are saying “look at these awful center-left parties that would give a tax break to rich people – we certainly wouldn’t” when they certainly would have, if they had won the election.
In more Christian Democratic news (reminder, they have a whopping 7% of the popular vote, but we’ll headline them here anyway) they’re backing out of writing a shadow budget with the Moderate party because there isn’t a chance it will win: “…because it’s hard to get [our budget] through, it isn’t meaningful to do it” Christian Democratic party leader Ebba Busch Thor explains ().
She has a point, in that there isn’t a chance a budget by the Moderate and Christian Democratic parties would pass, but she’s missing the point that by not creating a budget along with the Moderate party, she’s not even showing up. Voters are given no thoughtful alternative to the Social Democratic and Green party budget, and can just as well go back to bed. Unless they come out with their own budget, which they might well do in the next while, one can wonder if the party is making itself deserving of the mandate it won and the power it desires.