Jonathan_S wrote:It's less that the state of emergency let them divert money - it's that the progressive income tax was explicitly tied to the state of emergency. So while it lasts there's extra revenue from those emergency taxes. (It's also possible, though not stated anywhere I can recall, that some of the fee increased on Junction traffic were also linked so that same state of emergency)Zakharra wrote:The emergency also allowed the High Ridge government to divert money from military projects to civilian projects to basically buy the public. ie social welfare programs. Some of the funds was used to rebuild the destroyed Basilisk Station infrastructure that had been destroyed in the war, but much of the rest went into the High Ridge pet social system projects. They were also, I believe, trying to make it so the progressive tax structure that had come into being with the needs of the war be made permanent, so the wealthier people would be taxed at a higher rate. Basically, they took military money for social pet projects and as long as the emergency continued, they could continue to do that.
Cancel the state of emergency and the government's income immediately drops; but the Lords should be just as free to shuffle around the money that remains.
Actually the progressive income tax was going to expire, regardless of the state of emergency - it had a fixed sunset date. Given that the fighting had stopped, there was no way they were going to get an extension through, which is why they cut back on naval expenditures as much as they did - much to the disgust of Honor and Hamish. It fact it was the need to neutralize them so they could get the reductions through that led tot he smear campaign against the two of them.
