– Completely Unreal – E24

– It cannot be done without deep welfare cuts, says Labour’s Frode Jacobsen on the FRP proposal. Goes to campaign mode on the occasion of the Frp National Party board meeting.

How much money will we have in future state budgets for nursing and care services?

Too little, however, if FRP gets what it wants is the answer from Labour, which comes with a scoop from the left in the early election campaign on the same day FRP starts its national board meeting.

In March, the FRP party introduced a proposal to repeal a nearly 50-year-old law that allows municipalities to raise property tax.

The proposal states that “a property tax is antisocial, disproportionately affecting and does not take into account a family’s income, debt or ability to pay.”

– A completely unrealistic proposal, criticizes the representative of the Labor Party and member of the Finance Committee Frode Jacobsen.

You do not remove it in the government

Jacobsen provides a calculation.

According to figures from Statistics Norway, obtained by Ap, Norwegian municipalities received NOK 15.8 billion in property tax in 2022.

Diverted to care services, this corresponds to approximately 19,000 nurses or 18,250 teachers. This is based on a calculation from the Ministry of Finance, which calculates how much a nurse or teacher costs annually, including salary, employer tax, and pension. In addition, there are costs associated with other social expenses and associated costs.

– The combined budgets of Norwegian municipalities cannot be reduced by nearly 16 billion without massive cuts to the welfare of where people live, says Jacobsen.

There are 356 municipalities in Norway. 322 of them are property tax. Jacobsen thought it strange that the FRP did not do more to abolish the tax when it was in government.

– The FRP party has been in government for eight years, and hasn’t done anything about it. I think it’s because they know it’s a totally unrealistic proposition. The overall budgets of Norwegian municipalities cannot be cut by this amount without significant cuts to social welfare where people live.

– Now you say between the lines that you don’t think they’re serious.

– I think they mean it seriously, but they don’t answer how the municipality can provide this money. They probably know this can’t be done.

– The main argument of FRP is that the tax hits antisocial. Wouldn’t it be natural for the Labor Party to be positive about finding a tax that works better through equality?

– No, I don’t agree with Frp here. We know that those who mainly own homes and other property are the same people who have high income and wealth. Thus, a property tax is fair and contributes to redistribution, and not least, it provides income to society that benefits everyone by increasing welfare, Jacobsen answers.

Property tax is like drugs

It was Andrej Njostad of the Forbes team who brought the proposal to parliament. He snores about Jacobsen’s concern that municipalities can’t fund the cuts.

– That’s easy to answer. Norwegian municipalities have never done better. Municipalities have built up significant reserves in recent years. Their disposal fund grew from $27 to $82 billion between 2015 and 2018, says Njostad.

He believes it is just a myth that the municipality uses this money for social welfare services, and that it is instead being used to build a war chest hidden in town halls.

– Do you think this is money that municipalities don’t really need?

– Yes. Property tax is like a drug. Municipalities become dependent on income. They should learn from those who don’t have a property tax, says Njostad.

– 322 municipalities have a property tax. Do you think it is easy for everyone to remove it from year to year?

– The vast majority have potential when the state makes arrangements for such a good municipal economy. He says you can work without property tax.

– Why didn’t you just do this when you were in the government?

– Because we didn’t have a majority. But we had the other parties lower the blood alcohol level from seven to four, says Njostad.

In the end, it refutes all accounts put forward by the Labor Party.

I am disappointed that the Labor Party cares more about municipalities than ordinary people. Our concern lies with the private finances of families. We’ll hire more nurses, we need less administration and fewer full-time politicians, he says.