Taxes and fees: – Ordinary people of Bærum’s turn!

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The Progress Party has on several occasions proposed tax reductions to curb inflation, and thus reduce the monthly expenses for most people and the business community. We have been met with reluctance in the Storting.

The Ministry of Finance points out that the Norwegian economy is doing well, and when they have been challenged by the FRP, two arguments in particular have emerged. One is that Norwegian households have saved an average of NOK 100,000 each during the two years of pandemic. The other is Trygve Slagsvold Vedum’s famous calculation that showed that an “ordinary” family would benefit from their policies. Let us take a closer look at the two arguments.

Although Norwegian households on average have saved 100,000 kroner each through the pandemic, so it is probably not primarily the taxi drivers, hotel employees, cleaners and shop workers who have contributed to it. At the beginning of the pandemic, we had the largest increase in unemployment, and subsequently debt collection cases have increased, more people are applying for a grace period on mortgages and people are reporting lower incomes than before, even though they have got a new job.

May 24th we could also read that Norwegian households’ expectations of economic developments fall.

Those who, on the other hand, were spared from redundancies and redundancies were primarily public employees, and those with office jobs in the private sector. These kept their wages and many could work from home. These have undoubtedly done well through the pandemic, and have probably contributed to the savings accounts around the country having increased.

The second argument is that people will have increased purchasing power this year, exemplified by Vedum’s calculation. A calculation that by the way has been slaughtered, ridiculed and picked apart by economists in most of the country’s newspapers, so I will not spend so much time on the content of it. On the other hand, I noticed one of the assumptions in the calculation, which is that in order for it to be a plus, the family had to have a minimum of one million kroner paid out per year.

When asked in writing to Vedum, he confirmed that each of the parents in this very ordinary example family had to earn 680,000 kroner gross. This led me on to Minister of Local Government Sigbjørn Gjelsvik, and I asked for an overview of the average salary in Norwegian municipalities.

The answer from Gjelsvik showed that only three municipalities in this country have an average salary of more than NOK 600,000, and only Bærum municipality with its NOK 688,000 was more than NOK 680,000. The government’s ordinary nuclear family thus seems to live in Bærum.

The pattern here seems to be that the government uses ordinary people in Bærum as a reference when they develop their policy. Despite increased prices for electricity, food and fuel, they refuse to come up with tax reductions for ordinary people, and then obviously justify this with the fact that the Conservatives’ core voters have saved funds and will get better in 2022.

In regards to that Bærum also happens to be the municipality where Sp did the worst in the parliamentary elections in 2021, with only three percent, is it perhaps not so strange that voters are fleeing in large numbers?

The government’s voters are probably more concerned with the purchasing power of the inhabitants of Stange, Eigersund, Levanger or any of the other 355 municipalities in Norway, than how things are in Bærum.

If the government spends the summer to reflect on it a little, then if they come up with better ideas, they can come to Frp. We are ready to secure a majority for tax reductions that will benefit ordinary people.

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