Not really, no. That’s exactly the wrong focus. It distracts from the issue, it derails the conversation. That’s exactly the reason why conversations about revenue, spending and debt are always so tiring, pointless and unproductive.
If you want to reduce a 27 billion Euro deficit, it makes no sense at all to focus on the details of whether it’s a good idea for the state parliament to spend a few thousand additional Euros. Such spending or saving will neither increase nor decrease the debt in any sort of significant way. It’s a cheap talking point that clouds the issue and gives people hours of material to talk about the debt without coming even one millimeter closer to any sort of solution.
What are the biggest sources of income? Is there some way to increase them in such a way that paying off the debt in a realistic time-frame would be possible? What do we spend the most on? Is there some way to reduce what we spend on to reduce the debt in a meaningful time-frame? Those are the central questions.
How much do those tablets cost? Maybe 100,000 Euro every two years or so, so 50,000 Euro per year (and that’s a generous assumption). If the parliament wouldn’t pay for them (and assuming that the debt stays otherwise constant) the state would pay off its debt in half a million years. Even if you can find 100 similar small issues, paying off the debt would still take several thousand years. (Oh, and by the way, the debt isn’t constant, so at best you could hope to impact the growth of the debt some insignificant tiny bit.)
There is nothing wrong with arguing for or against whether the state should pay for tablets for members of parliament – but putting this discussion into the context of the debt is utterly ridiculous and pure cheap polemics. The important questions are: Do they need tablets to work, can they afford them themselves and what constitutes a fair and good payment of parliamentarians that produces the best outcomes (e.g. attracts competent people or allows even otherwise poorer people to participate in the parliamentary process). Again, talking about the debt in this context makes no sense.
If you want to reduce a 27 billion Euro deficit, it makes no sense at all to focus on the details of whether it’s a good idea for the state parliament to spend a few thousand additional Euros. Such spending or saving will neither increase nor decrease the debt in any sort of significant way. It’s a cheap talking point that clouds the issue and gives people hours of material to talk about the debt without coming even one millimeter closer to any sort of solution.
What are the biggest sources of income? Is there some way to increase them in such a way that paying off the debt in a realistic time-frame would be possible? What do we spend the most on? Is there some way to reduce what we spend on to reduce the debt in a meaningful time-frame? Those are the central questions.
How much do those tablets cost? Maybe 100,000 Euro every two years or so, so 50,000 Euro per year (and that’s a generous assumption). If the parliament wouldn’t pay for them (and assuming that the debt stays otherwise constant) the state would pay off its debt in half a million years. Even if you can find 100 similar small issues, paying off the debt would still take several thousand years. (Oh, and by the way, the debt isn’t constant, so at best you could hope to impact the growth of the debt some insignificant tiny bit.)
There is nothing wrong with arguing for or against whether the state should pay for tablets for members of parliament – but putting this discussion into the context of the debt is utterly ridiculous and pure cheap polemics. The important questions are: Do they need tablets to work, can they afford them themselves and what constitutes a fair and good payment of parliamentarians that produces the best outcomes (e.g. attracts competent people or allows even otherwise poorer people to participate in the parliamentary process). Again, talking about the debt in this context makes no sense.