Government and SYRIZA Clash Over Church Tax Proposal

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On Monday, the relationship between the Greek state and the Church of Greece became the focus of a fresh clash between the government and the main opposition SYRIZA party after a leftist MP proposed the introduction of a new tax to pay clerics’ wages. SYRIZA deputy Tasos Kourakis said that the Church should start funding itself instead of relying on dwindling state coffers. Kourakis told a conference organised by the Theology Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki that another option would be to impose a church tax on all Greeks who declare themselves Orthodox Christians. He said that revenues from it could go toward church costs and clerics’ salaries.

The rightwing New Democracy shot down the idea, which likened the proposed tax to “Stalinist measures”. ND argued that such a levy would be unconstitutional, as it would discriminate between Greeks based on their religious beliefs. SYRIZA noted that Kourakis’s proposal was the MP’s “personal opinion”, but said that Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras had mooted a similar initiative in the fall of 2011 when the latter was head of the Foundation for Industrial and Economic Research (IOBE). Stournaras accused SYRIZA of distorting comments that he made during a TV interview, when he noted that other European citizens don’t pay clerics’ salaries through taxation without proposing however that Greece follow suit.

28 January 2013

Kathimerini

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_28/01/2013_480874

Editor’s Note:

What SYRIZA proposes is nothing more than the system in place in Germany, where citizens pay a “church tax” that goes to the church of their choice. If one isn’t religious, the money goes into a general charity fund. “Stalinist” is usually “right-speak” for “we don’t like this and we want to demonise the people making this proposal” (such as Potapov’s recent crackbrained initiative concerning “Stalingrad” in the ROCOR). In short, the SYRIZA proposal isn’t leftist at all; it’s merely fair. It simply places the burden of support of the Orthodox Church on Orthodox believers. That’s as it should be, kids… New Democracy is sinking into irrelevance along with PASOK… SYRIZA is Greece’s future, as this common-sense proposal indicates. You can have SYRIZA or you can have Golden Dawn (which is neo-Nazi, fascist, racist, and xenophobic… that’s no choice at all)… that’s the real-world choice on offer… there’s nothing else. It’s clear that SYRIZA’s the better choice.

BMD

 

Greek Tax Officers Go Out On Strike

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Greek tax officers closed their offices and joined the continuing strikes in protest against wage reductions and forthcoming public sector layoffs, as well as against unfair taxes and exactions that they feel the government is about to declare. In the next few days, the Cabinet should decide on almost 12 billion Euros (485 billion Roubles. 15.5 billion USD. 9.6 million UK Pounds) in austerity measures in exchange for another EU/IMF loan of 31 billion Euros (1.25 trillion Roubles. 40 billion USD. 25 billion UK Pounds).

Observers expect the forthcoming round of belt-tightening to result in further cuts to wages and pensions. Athens Metro workers and tram drivers went on strike yesterday. Also striking are judges, hotel personnel, doctors, and chemists. A general 24-hour strike is due in Greece on the 26th of this month. The Greek government agreed with Troika experts on the increase of the pension age from 65 to 67 in a move that will enable Greece to save more than one billion Euros (40 billion Roubles. 1.3 billion USD. 800 million UK Pounds) annually. The Troika wants the coalition cabinet of Antonis Samaras to agree to austerity measures to the tune of 12 billion Euros for 2013 and 2014. However, the parliamentary coalition partners of his New Democracy Party, the PASOK Socialist Party and the moderate Democratic Left Party, oppose those measures. Both PASOK and Democratic Left are against major cuts in social spending.

Workers on the metro, trams, and urban trains as well as doctors, hotel staff, and some university professors in Athens have gone on a 24-hour strike over the government’s intention to cut salaries. More protests are due on 26 September, when the country’s leading trade unions shall launch a general strike. A 24-hour labour action by transport workers is due to begin shortly, and a series of warning strikes by state employees, are expected to paralyze Athens in the next few days.

The unions argue that the amount of money allocated by public transport companies on wages declined by half during the crisis. The strikers are also unhappy with an expected increase in the cost of public transport and demand that the government provide free transport passes to the unemployed, students, and pensioners.

Greek judges joined a strike action by state sector employees who’ve protested wage cuts. As the state reduced judges’ salaries by as much as 38 per cent over the past few weeks, judges’ associations warn that further pay cuts are putting their constitutional position as guarantors of the court system under threat. Whilst on strike, judges are hearing only cases nearing the statute of limitations.

The Greek government tabled a bill to halve the monthly salary of the President to 11,500 Euros (462,000 Roubles. 14,900 USD. 9,200 UK Pounds) and reduce his monthly hospitality expenses by one-third to 6,240 Euros (250,000 Roubles. 8,000 USD. 5,000 UK Pounds). The presidential pension is in for similar cuts. The measures should save the Greek treasury 350,000 Euros (14.1 million Roubles. 450,000 USD. 280,000 UK Pounds) each year.

21 September 2012

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_21/Greek-tax-officers-go-out-on-strike/

Editor’s Note:

The New Democracy slimers (who are equivalent to the US Republican Party), want to spare the Affluent Effluent by kicking the iaias and papous in the face. That’s why the Church of Greece is against the cuts in social spending. It’s not just the cuts… it’s the fact that the idle rich shall continue to party whilst poor people beg on the streets. That’s what Willy and Lyin’ Ryan want in the USA. That’s why we must vote on 6 November to re-elect the President. He’s no prize, to be sure, but he won’t club poor people in the face to benefit the rich like himself. After all, he paid a lower proportion of his income in tax than many making only 1 percent of his income. That’s called evil… that’s called Mammon-worship.

Orthodox people should be aware that the konvertsy (like all unhinged cultists) favour Willy’s nasty kleptocratic dreams. Not only should we vote against Willy, we should clean out his supporters in the Church… they support objective evil, full stop. Trust me, being for the illegalisation of abortion is a piffle when put in the balance with insane warmongering, rampant greed, pandering to sectarian crazies, and stacking the deck further in favour of the fatcats. On the one hand, we have a small amount of evil admixed with much good… on the other we have monstrous evil wearing a fig-leaf of “morality”. Our Lord Christ promised us that the wheat and tares would be intermixed until the Last Day. So be it… that means that we must choose the least evil path (not the “best”, for that’s not available). That means that all decent Christians must reject the money-grubbing consumerist greed of the Republican Party. It means that one shouldn’t listen to the likes of Fathausen, Freddie M-G, Mattingly, Reardon, Dreher, et al… they’re all shills for the Radical Godless Right (especially in their pandering to sectarian cultists (for that is what Mormonism and Pentecostalism are)).

There’s NO perfection out there…

BMD

10 September 2012. A Photo Spread. Rightwing Scummers in Greece in the Deep Kimchi… Coppers, Firemen, and Soldiers Join the Ranks of the Protesters

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The firemen are on the picket line…

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so are the coppers… the soldiers are there, too, but they weren’t in this set of images.

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Now, the rightwing scumbags in Greece have gone too far. They want to cut the salaries of firemen, cops, and soldiers so that their Affluent Effluent paymasters can party on without a care. That’s going to topple this rightwing excuse for a government. As always, the Affluent Effluent are the dumbest set of rocks in the box. What was said of the Bourbon Restoration is true of them to a tee, “They’ve learnt nothing and remembered everything”. Look at the good in this… it’ll hasten the fall of the One Percent and their political whores. SYRIZA is in the wings…

However, things are unravelling, and that’s not something to be desired. Sometimes, we must live through such, but such things aren’t to be desired. God preserve Greece and the Greeks…

BMD

8 September 2012. Here is a Consequence of Voting for Right-Wing Phantasms

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Why are the Greek Paralympians starved of funds? It’s so that lazy and porcine “investors” in their McMansions can be spared any of the pain of the current economic meltdown. It’s easier to kick the Paralympians full-force in the face than it it is for politicians to face off against the rich. In fact, that’s why the Greek public’s fed up with PASOK… it’s lost most of its cred by sucking up to the banksters. ND is trying desperately to hold together an oligarch-friendly government, but it’s a losing cause, they may have less than a year.

The spectre of SYRIZA is haunting the affluent effluent of Greece. They’re scared… they’re terrified of what’ll happen under a true Leftist government. I’ll simply say this… we can support the Paralympians or we can support the lazy McMansion filth. For me, that’s not a hard choice…

THIS is why you must vote for the Prez on 6 November… a vote for Willy is a vote to kick every ordinary person in the teeth for the benefit of the Perfumed Princes of this country. Is that what you want?

BMD