Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

In Nigeria, according to an article by Dele Fanimo and Collins Olayinka in the May 1 issue of The Guardian, "strong indications" have emerged that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), in addition to other demands "may also ask for a pay rise for workers in the country."

This information emerged yesterday by NLC President Abdulwaheed Omar while playing host to Chairman, Senate Committee on Labour, Wilson Ake in Abuja.  Omar stated that Nigerian workers were hard pressed by high cost of living resulting from the global food crisis.

According to Omar, "Part of our demands ... will be that government pay workers a living wage that is commensurate with the current reality in the country.  Workers are living in hard time and it is only normal that they are paid a living wage."

A message from the Action Congress (AC) has put the issue in current perspective:

"The Nigerian worker has never had it so bad in the history of our country, with rising unemployment, massive loss of jobs, lack of electricity, a high state of insecurity of lives and property and a decrepit infrastructure, just to name a few."

Meanwhile the May 1 issue of The Sydney Morning Herald showcases a story by Phillip Coorey and Peter Hartcher on comparable subject matter in leading with the information that "High earners will feel the pain of the Government scalpel in the budget, with the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, promising to redirect funds to protect `working families' who had not fared as well during the boom."

A key measure of the government's proposal includes the closing of a loophole related to share options used by corporate executives to minimize tax.  

According to Coorey and Hartcher, "That (loophole closing proposal) will save $80 million and is indicative of the Government's approach by ensuring those on higher incomes who had been the main beneficiaries of the economic good times, and who had been well looked after in previous (Peter) Costello budgets (Swan's predecessor), would make the most sacrifices this  time."

The Swan budgetary decision and the earlier mentioned Nigerian proposal are reminiscent of the position taken by President John F. Kennedy in 1963.  

Kennedy, conferring with Congress, made good used of a then government surplus by lending his leadership effort to a tax cut bill that provided relief to the middle class and poor.  The result was a boom period for the American economy resulting from a stimulus that generated a rush of expenditures that generated national prosperity.

"This will be a budget where the burden will be shared and those people on modest incomes are entitled to a fair go," Treasurer Swan said in his Herald interview.  "They don't actually expect a bonanza out of anything, they just expect a fair go."

Swan spoke with succinct precision.  In the tragic onrush to globalization too much of the world's wealth has ended up in a frighteningly decreasing number of hands.  It is the world's concern to see that hunger, poverty, illiteracy and disease are combated.  Proposals such as the foregoing desired to create not a "bonanza" but a "fair go" represent steps in the correct direction.

As Coorey and Hatcher explain, "Protecting Labor's `working families' would be the `priority' of the budget, which will deliver the election promises of tax cuts, an increased child-care rebate and an education tax rebate."

It is great to report on proposals headed in the correct direction in the face of a neoconservative propaganda machine that screams about "Communism" and "socialism" whenever constructive efforts are made to give any form of relief to those who have been brutalized by plutocratic economic policies featuring tax cuts to assist the wealthiest U.S. citizens at the expense of the many.