Excellent by @chrisdillow.bsky.social. Explains "dark Keynesianism" — why you have to tax the middle class, the money of the rich (alone) is no good, to make space for public services. Also goes beyond fiscal policy to think in real terms and targeted policy. There are immigration implications. 1/
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In this context, skilled immigration is a free lunch. You don't have to tax away the viability of current jobs if you don't need to shift current workers into the increased services you want to fund. 2/
If you are willing to let the nurses you want to hire immigrate, you *can* mostly let new money hire them (and just tax the rich if you're worried about fiscal balance in an accounting sense). 3/
The middle class has been persuaded that they pay taxes *to* immigrants when, in a full employment economy, it's immigration that can save them from having to pay taxes, or having to endure the disruption of sectors they work in shrinking in order to force them to retrain as nurses. /fin