The SNP have put the case for progressive taxation.

In the Science Fiction Novel Night Walk by Bob Shaw a character  (a hobo) makes the following observation.
The SNP have  put the case for progressive taxation.

 "it happens on Earth, Take someone like a surgeon. That man wants to be a surgeon-he wouldn't do any other job in the world -and yet he gets paid ten or twenty times a some poor gut whose doing work he hates."

Not something that I think that would catch on , but an argument that to my mind has more merit than the claim that Scottish MSP Annie Wells   extraordinary suggestion that  millions of ordinary people t earning below £33,000 per year are not ambitious hard-working or successful.

She posted her insulting Twitter rant in response to the Scottish government budget that included small income tax rises for people earning above £33,000 per year. 

As AAV points out

Her Tweet claimed that the progressive tax reforms implemented by the SNP government sent a message "don't be ambitious, don't be hard-working, don't be successful" to higher income Scots who have to pay a little bit more tax to fund public services, and things like free university education and free prescriptions. The clear implication of her rant being that people who earn less than £33,000 per year are not ambitious, not hard-working, and not successful.

This obnoxious elitist stance is yet another Tory assertion of the self-attribution fallacy: The warped idea that there is a form of natural economic justice at play ensuring that rich people become rich because they're superior, and poorer people remain poorer because of some inherent failing or moral deficiency (not because society is rigged against them and in favour of out-of-touch elitists like Annie Wells).

To put her toxic views into context the starting salary of a police officer in Scotland is £23, 493, a nurse starts on £22,128, and a firefighter begins on £22,017. All of these people earn at least £10,000 below Annie Wells' cutoff point.

Even if these public sector workers work hard over the years and climb the pay scale to eventually earn above £33,000, the SNP budget also includes decent pay raises for public sector workers, so they might have to pay a few extra pence a week in tax, but in return for much better pay than their counterparts in the rest of the UK. If they were lucky enough to benefit from Scotland's policy of free university education, they'd also save a fortune by not having to pay out chunks of their salary every month on aspiration tax either.

Annie Wells earns £60,000 per year as a member of the Scottish Parliament, which means she's raging that she's facing a 29p per week increase in income tax.

 As many people have asserted, tax is the subscription fee we pay to live in a civilised society. Annie doesn't want to pay a tiny bit more because she's a high profile member of a political party that has spent seven long years actively repressing the wages of UK workers, and especially public sector workers like police, NHS staff and fire fighter

The Twitter response was by and large  supportive  of the SNP stance which I believe  is the first time in ages that a government have sought to ask though with the broadest back to shoulder the burden of taxation

The UK Media much which is owned by men who avoid paying tax in these islands were expectantly negative








 
  I have no doubt that the Tories seeming enthusiasm for devolving Tax raising powers to Scotland and of course Wales was a Trojan Horse designed to get such headlines and based on the fact that no one likes paying Tax and the sure way to ensure defeat is for a party or government to propose raising it.

In social media  the response however   was somewhat positive.

 
OK it may well be that many who claim they are willing to pay more Tax  in order to preserve  the NHS and welfare state will on entering the polling station become a little more selfish and vote for the party that promises to cut taxes.

Though the Parties like the Tories and the Bailrites in Labour  they will never put in their manifesto, the consequences of cutting the revenue they raise.

Maybe this why the mainstream media  hates the Social media so much with newspapers  like the Daily Mail producing and Express making a Right-wing and Reactionary headlines it is small wonder we turn to Another Angry Voice and Wings over Scotland for the real facts.

I believe  that part of the reason Theresa May's gamble in calling for an early General Election backfired so spectacularly was because young people in particular are getting their information from beyond the mainstream media. 

With Blogs like AAV and Wings over Scotland perhaps the monopoly of the Right Wing (and increasingly Far-Right) media providing misinformation may be if not broken at least damaged/