The Mayor of Florence Supports Berlusconi's Call for the Abolition of Property Taxes on Houses

Matteo Renzi, the man who should be leading a truly Democratic Party in Italy, welcomed the abolition of property taxes on people's homes.  

"The idea of removing tax from first homes is not stupid and it's perfectly do-able. Berlusconi's claim that taxes are too high is correct. The problem is his credibility, which is not high enough for the proposal's merits to be properly considered.  But the proposal itself is worthwhile.  There's no call for all the irony and its dismissal out of hand."
[“Non bisogna ironizzare” sulle proposte dell’avversario, sottolinea. “L’idea di togliere l’Imu sulla prima casa non è stupida, è anche fattibile. Berlusconi – continua il sindaco – dice che c’è una pressione fiscale troppo alta: è un tema vero. Il problema è la sua credibilità, che non è all’altezza della proposta, ma la proposta è seria”]

Here opens for all to see the abyss that separates the authoritarian big-statist faction that has seized Prodi's party and the mass of the electorate who readily would have voted a Renzi Democratic party into power.   To make it worse, that electorate is now seeing that a vote for Monti might be an enabling vote for the proto-communists of Bersani's 'Democratic' coalition.  Such a corrupt alliance is being openly canvassed among the chattering classes (well, it would be, wouldn't it?  The chatclass always likes the big state, the Third Sector, the tax-funded jobs for the ageing boys and girls).

'If this election goes off the rails definitively we will call you ungovernable', they warn in their bossy elite-y way.  Look,  they say (why do they always preface their admonitions with 'Look'?   It's very rude.) 'Look, the spread is already close to 290'.  So it is, and perhaps this is where we dig in our heels and face them down.

Italy's economy, our economy, is sophisticated, innovative, highly integrated into the European economy and the third largest in the eurozone. This is not Spain with its building boom gone bad.  Germany has been unhelpful and economically aggressive; the Euro is too high for our exports; we are being dumped with all the costs of maintaining geopolitical stances in the Mediterranean which drain so much treasure from the north of Italy and should be a charge on the whole EU.  Perhaps the European Union has over-reached its democratic mandate when it furthers the interests of proto-communists in the West. 

If the people of the East could fight tanks in Budapest, in Prague, face down all the threats in Gdansk and Warsaw,  die at the Wall in Berlin till they could tear it down with their bare hands, cope with the economic consequences of the  Transition from realised socialism to the modern world, then perhaps we can stand up to the exponents of that defeated system in the West who are sneaking back to power under the false banners of Fairness, and Governing the Market in the interests of Social Justice. 

By confiscating cash from every household in the country within weeks of handing 4 billion euros to the treasury of the hard Left a vivid political lesson has been taught about the EU through its local representative.  We wanted to vote Renzi, and capitalism with a human face (to borrow an old slogan).  We are still willing to do so if such a offer can be put together by Monti in the next two weeks.  Otherwise some of us will vote for the real Left, the Civic Revolution of Ingroia, the rest will vote for the populist Right, the  People of Liberty, Berlusconi or no.  And if that brings down the wrath of God, or the markets, then too bad for the euro and too bad for Merkel's election chances in November.