A New Revenue Sharing Act and a New Stability Pact for Austria – No Fundamental Changes
The new Austrian domestic Stability Pact aims at the achievement of a zero deficit until 2008. At the federal level, the Maastricht-relevant deficit is to be reduced to 0.75 percent of GDP, states and municipalities together are obliged to obtain a surplus of 0.75 percent of GDP in 2008. The new revenue sharing agreement will not change fiscal relations fundamentally. The weight of shared federal taxes will increase; most of them will be distributed according to uniform revenue shares. The revenues of the smallest municipalities from the horizontal apportionment of shared federal taxes will increase. The states' strong dependency on intergovernmental transfers will not be reduced, the tax autonomy of the subnational levels of government will remain low.
Budget Proposal for 2005: Tax Reform Causes High Public Deficit
The 2004-05 tax reform and the after-effects of the stimulus packages, which were introduced as a counter-measure to the weak economic growth during the past three years, will increase the overall budget deficit to 1.9 percent of GDP in 2005. Transfer expenditures will gain in weight again. The tax reform will alleviate the tax burden on the mass income, decrease federal tax revenues, and increase the importance of indirect taxes. Due to the divestment strategy pursued in the last years, the share of off-budget institutions in overall public investment, employment, and debt is rising over time. The 2005 budget proposal for the first time provides for first steps of a gender-sensitive analysis of the federal budget.
The mark of sexual preference in the interpretation of texts: preface to a homosexual reading.
Since reading is an interaction or confrontation between the reader and the text-an interaction that depends upon the background and perspectives of the reader as well as on the text being read-we can assume that the dynamics of sexuality and sexual object choice will influence how readers ascribe meaning to literary texts. In fact, although other aspects of our identities come into play when we read, sexual identity is unique and central because of the role that it plays in the creation of subjectivity. Specifically, male homosexuality informs and structures the reading of texts. But what does it be a homosexual reader or to effectuate a homosexual reading of a particular text?