John Armstrong looks at the typical John Key-style punt that lies behind the budget.
Meanwhile Tracey Watkins has calmed down after the excitement of seeing the size of her tax cut and is questioning why Key is so afraid of anything but tightly managed media appearances.
My wife and I are retired. We worked hard, we lived frugally, and we have a nest egg to get us through. Now John’s mob have come along and taken part of that nest egg away from us. 5.9% inflation will eat up our savings. The same will happen to the nest eggs of retired people or young people saving to buy a house up and down this country. How does that reward saving?
It’s interesting to see how Irish’s ‘rabbit from a hat’ metaphor has taken off for describing this Budget. Some, like Tracey Watkins, are even using it positively. She needs to have a bit more of a think about what the rabbit from a hat is. The rabbit itself is nothing special. In fact, in this case it’s a borrowed bunny, despite the media’s tendency to portray tax cut as costless.
Amongst all the budget reaction, there is a group of people that I don’t understand. They are the small group who are very well off, and who are nevertheless exulting about tax cuts that give them a few tens of dollars a week. Is your allegiance really purchased so cheaply?
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In 2008, Bill English was sprung secretly telling National members that he and Key would sell Kiwibank “‘eventually but not now”. After being caught out, English and Key categorically ruled out asset sales in the first term of a National government and said they would seek a mandate to make any sales in a second term.
In what it seems to think is an act of benevolence and economic genius, National has decided to borrow a pile of money, cut key public services, put up GST, and give me an extra $1000 a year. Will it make me work harder? Hell no. My partner and I are already paid plenty. If anything it will make us look at ways to reduce the amount we work.
John Key’s “Don’t Be Jealous” Budget has done little to stop the European contagion from ravaging our sharemarket – at time of writing down […]
There’s some useful scenarios to look at on the beehive’s tax site. They show how we all pay less tax, even after GST, and somehow the government also gets more tax. I love maths like that. But some of them seem to have something missing, so I thought I’d correct a couple of them…
Have you figured out what the Budget means for you? I’ve been looking at the media statements, reading the spin, deconstructing the commentators and trying to work out where it gets me as a parent with young children….
What does Treasury make of National’s economic plan according to the Budget papers? Here’s the outlook for when National is kicked out of office at the end of 2011: Workers’ share of the economy will have fallen from an already miserable 43.6% to 41.5%. GDP per capita will be lower when National leaves office than when they entered it. Real wages will drop 2%.
I think the saddest part of this budget is that the government will spend $70 million building more prisons while cutting $120 million from early childhood education. It kind of sums up this Key Government’s priorities don’t you think? They’re cutting taxes for the rich while they cut health and education spending. It’s our future they are cutting, so the rich can be richer in the short-term.
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A round up of commentary from around the media on the Budget. Well, the media that’s in written form anyway. I’ll be damned if I’m doing any transcribing. Favourite lines, Vernon Small: “Bill English has written a one-dimensional tax-shuffle Budget”, John Armstrong: “Those looking for the bright ideas and initiatives to galvanise economic growth are going to be hugely disappointed”
Let’s get this straight. Borrowing a billon dollars for tax cuts while cutting services is not centrist.
Even if tax cuts go to middle and low earners too.
Meanwhile the opposition is MIA.
Telecom Paul Reynolds’ $290,000 ‘rich guy bonus’ alone is enough to hire six nurses or teachers. It’s enough to pay for 40,000 hours of early childhood education. It’s the added GST bill for some 400 typical Kiwi workers.
As expected this man, earning $7 million a year, has been given a tax break more than 200 times bigger than that of the average Kiwi worker.
Update: Key has spent up large in his irresponsible tax cuts for the rich. We’ll be paying for this for decades to come. What happened to the fiscal conservatives in the National Party?
Finance Minister Bill English today announced tax cuts worth $340,000 for National MPs on their Parliamentary salaries alone. “I’m very pleased we could announce this gift, ah, fair alteration of the tax system. There was a real danger that New Zealand could have lost the services of such valuable, highly-skilled workers as Paula Bennett, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, Paul Quinn, and Melissa Lee
The latest Roy Morgan poll makes for grim reading for the government ahead of what promsies to be an unpopular budget. Confidence in government is now bouncing between net 25% and 30% positive. That compares to 55% last October. Put that another way: 1 in 8 Kiwis have gone from having a postive view of this government to a negative one in the past half year, and it’s showing up in the party’s numbers.
Hone Harawira does not want to vote for the ‘don’t be jealous’ budget and he doesn’t think the Maori Party will be standing true to its principles or supporters if it does. Harawira sought permission to vote against the Budget. Tariana Turia, who is awfully comfortable in the back of her Crown limo, refused. Let’s hope Harawira has the courage cross the floor anyway.
Giving the rich a bucket of your money, is about keeping valuable people (who must be rich, by definition) in this country, or closing loopholes (by make the cheat automatic), or was it about boosting growth through trickle down (which is like helping a dehydrated man by giving water to someone with an already full bladder and hoping they piss on him)? Whatever, just don’t be jealous, OK?
The anti-government protests in Thailand are part of a complex internal struggle. Yesterday the main protest camp was cleared by government troops. But the protests are far from over.
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The Nats thought they could spin anything. Even more tax cuts for the rich.
But they were wrong.
What rabbit will they pull out of the fiscal hat now? And who will fall for the trick?
We already know that National’s big economic plan this budget is a tax swap from working Kiwis to the rich that will not affect growth but will increase inequality. There’s some money for science and Kiwirail, which is good but only partially reverses the cuts that National imposed last year. The two big items in the budget that the Nats have control over (assuming no cuts to benefits or super) are education and health. The increases in these two sectors are the things to watch.
It is befitting that the 27st of May – just one week after the Budget – marks Thank The Rich Day, which sees poor people the length of the country gearing up to offer their gratitude to the rich for their contribution to the welfare of the poor through making themselves richer. Thank The Rich Day is, in fact, the brainchild of grocery packer Joe Brown…
Brian Gaynor in Saturday’s Herald argues that investment industry organisations and their advisors owe a duty of care to investors. He calls it […]
Inequality is terribly damaging to society. National want to increase inequality by transferring wealth from the poor to the rich. They argue that this provides “incentives” for the vast majority of the rest of us to “get ahead”. But this aspirational argument is both incoherent and absurd.
Some how it just seems right for John Key’s “Don’t Be Jealous” Budget. Or if you want something a bit more high brow […]
Tomorrow, National will give huge tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders. $12,000 a year for a typical CEO or a Prime Minister on $350,000 a year. $290,000 a year for Paul Reynolds, the CEO of Telecom. The Right are trying a bunch of excuses for this unneeded gift to the richest people in the country, paid for by working Kiwis. Let’s debunk ’em.
Unions are closing the wage gap in the oil industry using collective action
Meanwhile the government is preparing to give rich individuals tax cuts and has been eroding the rights of workers.
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The US Republican Party faces destruction at the hands of the Teabaggers, a reactionary movement based on ignorance and fear that the Republican leadership purposely created. National faces a similar risk. It cynically fed its members anti-climate change conspiracy theorist nonsense. Now the Nats have to govern but their knuckle-draggers are fighting back.
Yesterday I posted on John Key being named “Dim bulb of the week” by the San Francisco Examiner. Continuing with a dim bulb theme – let’s talk about Edison Hour, as it is explained to us by a budding genius from ACT…
Apparently, President Obama has delivered a speech ‘ranting’ against technology. The opinion in The Economist is worth a read just for the joy […]
The Greens have released their alternative budget, “Mind the Gap”. It focuses on the inequality between rich and poor in NZ (rightly called “the scourge of modern societiesâ€). It’s great to see the Greens tackling this issue head on.
Key has finally admitted his tax cuts are for the rich.
But that’s okay, he says, because the rich are so much more important than us.
