DUMA GQUBULE: Fiscal rules ‘are a political tennis ball’
The government’s austerity 3.0 will probably be based on targets for the primary budget surplus
SA heads to the polls at the end of May with parties that could win 80% of votes — the ANC and members of the DA-led multiparty charter (MPC) — in agreement on a mad neoliberal plan that could result in a law that entrenches the austerity policies that have failed since 2012 and ensures that fiscal policies are not subjected to rigorous democratic deliberation.
With an inflation targeting central bank and a new fiscal rule (or anchor), a new coalition government will not have the economic policy tools to confront the unemployment crisis. Instead of having real debates about the economic policies that are required to end hunger, parliament could be bogged down in pointless arguments about complex technical formulas that boil down to “finding the best way to starve the family to pay off the debt”...
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