Bill English, in an unguarded moment before the business community, has expressed his desire for massive tax cuts for the rich, saying that he would like to see "large numbers" of people paying a top tax rate of 20% a year.
But apart from being a sign that English wants to restart the Revolution if he ever sets foor in the Beehive, there's the simple fact that (as Just Left points out), large numbers of us already pay a top tax rate of less than 20%. Seventy percent of us earn less than the $38,000 threshold at which the 33% rate kicks in. So, when English talks about "large numbers" of people, he is in fact talking about large numbers of his rich friends and donors, rather than the ordinary New Zealanders whose votes he needs to take power.
But ignoring that and taking his desire at face value, what would it cost to see more people on the bottom rate? According to Treasury, increasing the middle tax threshold by $1,000 costs $125 million a year. So seeing 80% of us paying the bottom rate (requiring the threshold to be increased to $50,000) would cost $1.5 billion a year, while seeing 90% pay it (requiring the threshold to go to $70,000) would cost $3 billion. That's $3 billion a year we wouldn't have for roads, hospitals, schools, and insuring people against the vicissitudes of fortune - meaning that we'd either have to cut those services to compensate (and that amount of money means cuts of the level seen in the 1990's - despite national's hot air, there is not $3 billion a year of "waste" in the system, unless you regard providing education and health care and a welfare state as inherently "wasteful"), or borrow and indenture our children for the sake of the greed of the rich.
Needless to say, I do not regard either as a morally acceptable course of action.
Where does your figure of 70% earning less than $38,000 come from? Does it include those that do not work? Because I thought the median wage was higher than that.
ReplyDeleteLucyna: I thought the median wage was higher than that.
ReplyDeletePeople pay taxes on income, not wages. And according to the 2006 census highlights [PDF; see p 9], the median income is a mere $24,400.
The fairly rough figures on income distribution come from the table in the same document. You might also be interested in the 2001 data in this spreadsheet [XLS].
Naturally, if you have better income distribution figures (rather than just what you "think"), then I would be glad to see them.
Whats wroong with more people paying less tax. Doesnt it provide an incentive for people to work hard to reach those top rates??
ReplyDeleteEven if it teh party policy, surely it is a matter for the voters to decide on. Or isnt democracy acceptable when it introduces something that you are ideologically opposed to.
Unless of course you dont work and you have on intention of earning more
Ok, then. How many of those in your figures get their "income" from non-government sources, ie, are not on some sort of benefit?
ReplyDeleteAnd, if the median income is only $24,000 - I wonder if that includes children? My children certainly don't have any income - they rely on their parents to earn it for them and we seem to be taxed a horrendous amount.
In fact, our income after tax is less than $24,000 per member of our household. Yet, by your standards, we would be considered "rich".
Shouldn't you be using the average or mean value for wages rather than the median?
ReplyDeleteUsing my poor memory the mean is higher than the median.
Sb
Anon: "Whats wroong with more people paying less tax. Doesnt it provide an incentive for people to work hard to reach those top rates??"
ReplyDeleteHaven't you noticed that I/S subscribes to the policy of envy?
In his ideal world the Doctor, the Expert should be paid the same as the guy who moves bricks between piles. Though of course Union officials would be paid more.........
Sb
SB, I have noticed that I/S is very much of the politics of envy type. I personally think that anyone who doesn't have investments that they pay tax on or a wage or a salary that they earn that they pay tax on ought not to be winging when the people that actually earn money may get some tax relief. A policy of most working people being taxed to only 20% would greatly affect mothers who want to stay at home with their children - they could leave their husbands working and just opt out of the workforce. With progressive tax, it makes that sort of option unaffordable for many mothers.
ReplyDeleteLucyna: Ok, then. How many of those in your figures get their "income" from non-government sources, ie, are not on some sort of benefit?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't matter. They still pay tax, regardless of where the income comes from.
If you had bothered to check, you'd have noticed that the census figures include everyone over 15, and that only 6% reported a nil income or a loss.
I should also note that our tax system assesses individual income, rather than allowing it to be split amongst members of a household.
Sb: Shouldn't you be using the average or mean value for wages rather than the median?
Nope. I'm interested in the actual distribution of income in our society, not an abstraction which masks the real situation.
Tax the ass off of Bill English and his 'fatcat' mates, and spend it on our healthcare system (where the workers get paid more and more for doing less and less each year).
ReplyDeleteGovernment intervention actuates inefficiency.
Mr President: When the issue of how much we pay CEOs or politicians comes up, the right are swift to say that "if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys", and talk about the necessity of paying competitive rates to retain a highly skilled and highly mobile part of the workforce.
ReplyDeleteDoctors, nurse, and radiologists - all of whose skills are in high demand overseas - are simply taking them at their word.
I/S, why do you hate people who create wealth? What did the productive ever do to you to raise such rancour?
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of doctors: don't believe the hype. There are more per capita than ever before. More choose to work part time, showing they are adequately remunerated.
ReplyDeleteThey can't get into the UK anymore -too many doctors there-and an "Avalanche" of Aussie med students is about to hit.
Doctoring is one of those professions where you get paid more for doing less (locum work). Being held to ransom by a population which I as taxpayer helped train is rather unfortunate.
Lucyna: A policy of most working people being taxed to only 20% would greatly affect mothers who want to stay at home with their children - they could leave their husbands working and just opt out of the workforce.
ReplyDeleteMothers with rich partners, perhaps. To point out the obvious, if you're part of the vast majority who already pay less than 20%, you get no benefit at all. And if you're not, then you'd need to be earning quite a bit for 19% of it (the top marginal rate minus 20%) to compensate for the lost wages. Your partner would need to be making more than $120,000 for such a tax shift to compensate for even a minimum wage job. The economics shift depending on the proportion of the second income spent on childcare, but the blunt fact is that this would be a hugely expensive way of doing things compared to targetted tax breaks such as Working for Families - so much so that it is difficult to escape the conclusion that you are not advancing the proposition seriously, but rather as an ill-thought-out universal solution in search of a problem.
All income-tested benefit recipients have been taxpayers since 1986. If they have no other income, they don't notice it as what they get is net of tax. But their earnings, if any, are taxed at the secondary earnings tax rate. At least, I think that's still the case.
ReplyDeleteI think what Lucyna wants is the pre-1960 tax system, where tax was assessed on the family unit, not the individual. That's what the Exclusive Brethren - and other Christian conservatives who don't believe in mothers working outside the home - want NZ to return to. Only those who have a high income would benefit. It's a way for high income men, whose wives wouldn't need to work anyway, to reduce their taxes.
I/S: Doesn't matter. They still pay tax, regardless of where the income comes from.
ReplyDeleteIt matters a great deal. In reality, state welfare beneficiaries do not pay tax, except on paper. A tax is a proportion of one's earnings taken by the government to fund its activities. To the extent that people rely on state welfare benefits, they do not earn their income, so cannot pay tax.
By 'earn' I mean to receive money given in exchange for goods or services.
The so-called "cost" of lowering income tax ignores the increase in GST due to the rise in consumption and the increase in RWT due to increased savings. As others have said, there are revenue optimal tax rates, and the current ones are not that (I understand it is somewhere between 19-21% that is the optimal as a flat rate).
ReplyDeleteOf course I'm always amazed as to why anyone would oppose a flat rate. The more income you earn the more you pay (and you don't tend to require more from the state in return).
Of course there should be a tax free threshold at the bottom (at least $5000 if not $10000), which eliminates the increase of taxes for others. However what it boils down to is, if not envy, is the basic difference between those on the left and those on the liberal right.
Those on the left believe the state has the right to take proportionately more from you the more you earn.
Those on the liberal right believe the state should, as a first principle, take from you what it needs to cover the services you consume or share, beyond that there can be debate.
A libertarian of course argues that it isn't the state's money anyway, but that's another debate.
Richard: I/S, why do you hate people who create wealth? What did the productive ever do to you to raise such rancour?
ReplyDeleteAlternately, why do you hate the poor so much? It is an unavoidable consequence of the "free-market" system that there will be people that are pushed to the bottom and kept there, so why shouldn't a nation (via the govt) help them as much as we can? Public services (Education, Health) are the bare minimum in this regard, and taxation, at a fair level, seems to be the most practical means of achieving this at this point in time.
Perhaps Bill English's comment was timed for the next poll?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of forthcoming polls, this new book on John Howard looks like a must-read for progressive political junkies on both sides of the Tasman.
Howard's Seduction of Australia: Where to Now? by Mike Clancy
http://www.howardseduction.com.au/about.html
Some chapters are available online, including one on how to recognise Crosby/Textor's dirty tactic of wedge politics. It's about creating scapegoats, not necessarily ethnic ones.
It is interesting to see a glimpse of the national party agenda. Billions of dollars of tax cuts to the rich, to be [paid for by the poor. To remind everyone,
ReplyDelete1/ National is still keeping its bribe from the insurance council so ACC will be gutted to allow Australian companies to charge you $1000 a year for car accident insurance and send half the money offshore. If you are even moderatly poor, forget about playing sport - you won't be able to afford the private insurance. After all, no fault no profit is worth no money to the big insurance companies.
2/ If you haven't had a pay rise, then won't be getting one before 2011 if National win. National is going to strip you of the rights Labour gave you back in 2002. Oh - and you'll be subject to a 90 day "probation" period.
3/ Forget about the health system - read David Farrar and check for how many times he mentions "quality spending" and health in the same post. We'll see capped health budgets and absolute chaos in the health sector as health sector workers take unprecedented levels of industrial action.
4/ Education - we'll see a two tier system where priveleged state schools will skim the best and the rest will be dumped into a second class state system. Of course, there won't be many days of school as teachers fight vouchers, performance based pay, zoning and zero pay rises due top capped education spending.
5/ Welfare - If you are on a pension or a benefit (or the minimum wage) expect a 12% cut in your income over three years as inflation eats away at your fixed income. National won't put those up either. And Working for families - the tax cut national will give might give those on the bottom of the income ladder a few dollars, but you'll lose heaps of WFW.
All the above so the richest New Zealanders can line their pockets with tax cuts.
My partner and I are starting a small business. We went to the accountant today for some advice on setting up the practice and instead got a lesson on all the creative ways to avoid paying taxes. The only people who are getting screwed are those who make enough to be in a higher tax rate, but not enough to afford or bother going to an accountant. Remember the wealthiest in the country only pay tax on the money they haven't creatively hid.
ReplyDelete> Of course I'm always amazed as to why anyone would oppose a flat rate.
ReplyDelete1) Fairness
2) Efficiency of Consumption
3) Maintenance
Fairness.
It is easier to make your second hundred thousand than your first hundred thousand. Also your first hundred thousand is worth a lot more to you than your second because the first one is the one that feeds and clothes you - the second buys your new car.*
Consumption
Also, all things being equal, a middle income person will spend a dollar more carefully than a rich person. Bill gates might fly a bottle of water into India while a middle income person might pay for eye surgery.
Maintenance
Also there is a certain value in flattening income distribution in terms of incentives. In a fiercely competitive world
1) resources would rapidly accumulate in the hands of an ever decreasing circle of people
2) the "have nots" would find effort was rewarded with less and less return as the available pie for the ever growing collection of less competent became smaller.
by taking a certain optimal amount of money from the rich and redistributing it one is able to continue to feed the animal so to speak - there are still less competent people out there for the average man to get to pay him to do things they can't do and the rich still see more resources out there than they can accumulate while collectively not undermining the system.
• This also comes into play when you consider that I might apply 50% of my effort to become a millionaire while applying 70% of my effort would make me twice as rich – so even if I am taxes twice as much on that later money I still get a better effort to return ratio. (Note also that some people in this model can’t become millionaires because it takes more than a 100% effort)
GNZ
Paul,
ReplyDelete"Alternately, why do you hate the poor so much? It is an unavoidable consequence of the "free-market" system that there will be people that are pushed to the bottom and kept there, so why shouldn't a nation (via the govt) help them as much as we can? "
I dont think the wealthy (who by the way dont pay much taxes anyway - the middle class employee pays the bulk) hate anyone who is poor. Quite the oppposite, the more wealth the poor have the more purchacing power they have, the better for business, the better for the economy.
What they do hate is the ratio of tax payers versus tax receivers being too far out of kilter. If tax receivers have such a cosy number then the tax payers can easily switch camp and become tax receivers. This is great until there are no tax payers left. Then the tax receivers have nothing.
So somewhere there has to be a balance to making sure that there are enough tax payers to fund the tax receivers. Because of that you will always have wealthier tax payers and poorer tax receivers. Fact of life.
Currently we have a slight imbalance caused not by tax payers paying their fair share ot tax receivers getting their fair share but by a government hoarding a surplus through over tax the payers and under distributing to the tax receivers.
All the tax payers want is a fair deduction (no more no less then is required to run the government programmes), all the tax receivers want is what they are entitled to.
It is all about balance. Tax to much and the tax payers move to lower tax pastures (either overseas or by becoming a tax recipient), tax to little and the tax receivers stay poor.
Hate does not come into it.
Interestingly enough the biggest damage being done IMHO is by the reserve bank. The increased interest rates are making rents and home ownership more expensive, sending excess profits back to Australian Banks and Japanese Housewives.
Now with Bollard also selling NZ dollars (with a resultant increase rather then the hoped for expected decrease in the value of the NZ$) expect the numbers of poor to increase dramatically.
I dont think the wealthy (who by the way dont pay much taxes anyway - the middle class employee pays the bulk) hate anyone who is poor.
ReplyDeleteThe statistics on tax revenue from Treasury suggest that this is a myth. In 2006 the 14% of the population who earned over $60,000 paid 53% of the tax. The 1% who earned over $150,000 paid 16% of the tax.
Incidentally, Treasury also advise that the average full time wage in New Zealand is $46,002.
Danyl,
ReplyDelete$60,000 is middle income employees so they do pay the most tax, (53% is the most)
Those paying the tax on $150,000 are also employees so would have no mechanism to reduce their tax load (unless they invested in LAQC rental property)
The really wealthy own business and pay very little personal tax. A load of company but not much personal tax.
I'm still interested to find what the balance is between tax payees and tax recipients. Any ideas at what point it becomes untentable to be a payer (the tax take is so high the take home pay is on par with what tax benefiaciers receive fro the state)and at what point social chaos results from pure poverty by an underclass unable to function in our society (though insuffucient state support)??
"I'm still interested to find what the balance is between tax payees and tax recipients."
ReplyDeleteIt depends on how you fill those categories. Dole, sickness beneficiaries and pensioners are obvious to place, but what about people who get their income from SOEs, state funded education, Government departments, DHB owned hospitals and local authorities?
Even many private companies earn a large part of their crust from Government contracts and out-sourced service delivery.
I'm intrigued by the long-advocated system of negative income tax, where everybody gets a life allowance tax-free no matter what your circumstance with only taxation kicking in when you start earning.
Nobody "earns" the amount of money the rich cream off from the rest of us. new Zealand was a much happier place when we didn't have such an obscene gap between the rich and the poor. Make the rich pay their taxes and we will all be better off.
ReplyDeleteNobody "earns" the amount of money the rich cream off from the rest of us. Make the rich pay their taxes and we will all be better off.
ReplyDeleteI'm technically 'rich' in that I earn well over the $60,000 tax limit - and I can assure you I work very hard for my money and don't 'cream' it off anyone.
Like I said before, the 1% of the country that earns > $150,000 pays 16% of the total tax. They pay five times the national average in income tax.
Personally I'm not too bitter about having to pay WAY more tax than almost everyone else because I still have way more than almost everyone else, but I resent the notion that people feel they're somehow entitled to still MORE of what I've earned through my hard work.
Anon,
ReplyDelete"happier place when we didn't have such an obscene gap between the rich and the poor."
Can you quantify what the gap should be? or is it all just cliches for you (such as "we would all be happier").
To me, unless you quantify it is all hot air.
Sanctuary, lets remember:
ReplyDelete1) National's policy was not to "privatise ACC" as often claimed by left wingers. instead it was to allow competition in the provision of insurance services. it included guarenteeing no fault insurance cover to all new Zealanders. the stuff about ACC being "gutted" and $1 000 insurance are lies. If not provide documentation.
2.You would get more money in the pocket from a tax cut 9 a effective pay rise) if National wins. Labours changes to industrial relations laws gave more rights to unions, not ordinary workers. Nationals 2005 industrial relations policy only provided for minor changes, the most significent being the 90 day probationary period and removing unions right to collective bargining.
3. health, David farrar is not the author of National's health policy, just a blogger. What he says shouldn't be taken as national policy. the full details of Nationals 205 policy are can at http://www.national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleId=5136 .Let me guess we won't see 'unprecedented levels of industrial action" in and 'total chaos" in health if national wins. Is this another scare tactic?
4.national's school policy at http://www.national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleID=4621#6 makes no reference to helping private schools. national was planning to reduce zoning, not make more zoniong as you claim. As for vouchers (which national was only to give to certain students), preformance based pay (which would be decided by school boards) they should help improve education by encouraging teachers to improve their preformances (preformance based pay).
Sanctuary, in future find out what nationals policies are before criticizing them, and stop scaring people with strikes destroying health and education if any changes are made.
I think the "proper gap" between the richest and poorest should be a ratio of 4:1 - the richest person in our society should not be permitted to be more than four times wealthier than the poorest. I take my ratio from Aristotle, in his "Nichomachean Ethics", which I think sets out the basic principles of distributive justice fairly well.
ReplyDeleteI think the "proper gap" between the richest and poorest should be a ratio of 4:1 - the richest person in our society should not be permitted to be more than four times wealthier than the poorest. I take my ratio from Aristotle, in his "Nichomachean Ethics", which I think sets out the basic principles of distributive justice fairly well.
ReplyDeleteHistory suggests that the citizens of states who seek to build a just, fair and equitable society based on such high-minded principles quickly end up boiling tree roots and eating their neighbours to survive the subsequent famines.
Anon said - "I think the "proper gap" between the richest and poorest should be a ratio of 4:1 - the richest person in our society should not be permitted to be more than four times wealthier than the poorest."
ReplyDeleteWhat maddness.
Do you actualy think these things through???
So what happens when a productive person gets to 4x as wealthy as the poorest. What is the incetive to keep working? For every dollar they earn, the might get to keep 5c.
That's a sure fire way to send any productive people offshore or onto the beach for the rest of the year.
Genius.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteNow the economics. Poorest wage say $30,000. Therefore maximum is $120.000.
Please tell this to Bollard and every public servant who earns around the $450,000 mark. Also tell this to Helen Clark, whose salary is way over your Mark.
tell that to every doctor (medical or engineering) who can earn twice your maximum salary in Australia.
Now you could always bring the poorer wage up to 25% of Bollards. That means the poorests wage wil be $100,000.
Any dea how much taxation is required to pay that wage?
I think society and economics should be based on justice.
ReplyDeleteIt is not just that people wait months in pain because they can not afford private health insurance. It isn't just when your income can't support a family because your work is so lowly paid.
I think it is just that even on a low income for an unskilled job, you can still feed and clothe your kids, afford health care, save a little money, and live in a healthy (ie. warm and dry) home.
There has to be a balance between creating incentive for those for whom wealth/material success is important and also for making sure that those on low incomes can still live a healthy and satisfying life.
"70% earn less than $38.000"
ReplyDeleteYou're proud of this? To me its an admission of failure. Despite Labours promises to the contrary after 8 years we continue to slip down OECD rankings. Why do you think that is?
I/S and other lefties. Please define "rich" for me, just so I can get a grip on your arguments.
ReplyDeleteCheers
G
I/S: You *are* joking with this post aren't you? $3b is nothing for the government today, this policy looks cheap.
ReplyDeleteOf course, those numbers don't include the extra income the government will receive that tax cuts (like the bush ones) generate.
As for the "you hate the poor" - no, socialists hate the rich explicitly, but hate the poor implicitly. In socialist societies, the poor are held under the thumb of the state. Individual enterprise and hard work are discouraged, with the result that the ranks of the poor increase.
Definition of "rich" - anyone with an income more than four times that of the poorest member in our society. If it was good enough Aristotle and the Athenian school it's good enough for me.
ReplyDelete"Definition of "rich" - anyone with an income more than four times that of the poorest member in our society. If it was good enough Aristotle and the Athenian school it's good enough for me."
ReplyDeleteNice one. Definition of rich is now 0.
Please explain the redistribution process you and old 'stotle plan to use to enforce this utopia you have planned?
"Definition of "rich" - anyone with an income more than four times that of the poorest member in our society. If it was good enough Aristotle and the Athenian school it's good enough for me."
ReplyDeleteHow bloody sad....
G
Definition of "rich" - anyone with an income more than four times that of the poorest member in our society. If it was good enough Aristotle and the Athenian school it's good enough for me.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm certainly rich by your definition, and I think I speak for all 'rich people' when I say that I'd be on the first plane out of any country that implemented such a taxation system. You'd instantly be in Ayn Rand fantasy territory and not only would the countries income nose-dive - because, as we've discussed, the rich pay most of the nations taxes - but the lights would go off pretty damn fast and you'd be enjoying the prospect of a life without electric power, dental care, running water ect. Do you really think all those network engineers who get paid 6 figures a year to keep the internet running would stick around to enjoy your utopia?
You see, the big difference between Aristotles time and ours is technology and knowledge. In his time most valuable work was performed by slaves who were instantly replaceable. In our time the most valuable work is performed by trained professionals who take years of study to aquire their skills and who can easily take those skills to another country where they'll be more appreciated.
Danyl.
ReplyDeleteHe wasn't being serious... I hope.
G
The only relevant difference between our time and Aristotle's is that the rich have become greedier and more selfish, because they have lost their moral compass.
ReplyDeleteThe only relevant difference between our time and Aristotle's is that the rich have become greedier and more selfish, because they have lost their moral compass.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that a few happy years as a chattel slave in Aristotelian Athens, toiling in the fields for 18 hours a day or dying of metal poisoning while working in the silver mines at Laurion would quickly disabuse you of such quaint notions.
I have no doubt that is precisely what most of us can look forward to under an ACT-National government.
ReplyDeleteWhat is wrong with a universal 20% flat tax? After all it isn't "stealing" from the poor as some of your readers are suggesting... 20% of $50,000 is more than 20% of 23,000.
ReplyDeleteSanctuary: Where has this list of nonsense come from. Not one right wing political party is advocating what you said. Are you just readying yourself for scaring kids at bedtime for the next election campaign?
Heine -
ReplyDeleteI would have thought the weasel word language of Nicholas O'Kane stood in testimony of the fact of what I am saying.
1/ National hasn't changed its ACC policy from the 2005 election. It is a self-serving policy paid for and written by the Insurance Council.
2.A tax cut - negligable for the bottom end of income earners - is not a pay rise. More weasel words from National designed to get employers off the hook. National hasn't changed its anti-union, anti-worker, pro boss industrial relations policies since the Brash era. And we all know about the wage gap that grew up under the last, worker hating, National government.
3. Health. Press release after press release, faithfully repeated by the National party lapdog over at Kiwiblog, attacks government spending as "excessive." Press release after press release attack health for "poor quality" spending. Given that National wants to give huge tax cuts to its crony secret funders in big business,
you don't need to be Einstein to work out that they are going to have to find the money from somewhere. Health is the biggest ticket item of all, and is consistantly targetted in National press releases. Do the maths. National appears to want to take health back to the near-collapse of 1990. National does not appear to understand that we are now in 2007, and the health sector unions will not allow that to happen without nmassive chaos.
Or is National just going to recklessly borrow and spend?
4. On education, Mr. O'Kane is obviously thinks people are stupid since he denied what I said then confirmed it -
"National's school policy... ... makes no reference to helping private schools. national was planning to reduce zoning...", ...As for vouchers (which national was only to give to certain students), preformance based pay (which would be decided by school boards) they should help improve education by encouraging teachers to improve their preformances (preformance based pay).
So National do plan to get rid of zoning ("YAY!" yells Auckland Grammar and the other elite schools keen on cherry picking to create a two tier system), introduce vouchers, and try and bring in performace based pay. The PPTA is going to love that.
"National hasn't changed its ACC policy from the 2005 election. It is a self-serving policy paid for and written by the Insurance Council."
ReplyDeleteNational hasn't changed it's policy since it was last in government. Anyone with a memory remembers that ACC had it's monoply removed under the National government, and would remember National vowing to reverse Labours' repeal of that.
But don't let facts get in the way of your cheap shots - you're on the left after all.
"2.A tax cut - negligable for the bottom end of income earners - is not a pay rise. "
Indeed, it's a reduction in theft from the productive members of society.
"National hasn't changed its anti-union, anti-worker, pro boss industrial relations policies since the Brash era."
Sheesh! This goes wayyyy beyond short memory. The right is inherently anti-union, and we're proud of it! Name a time when National *wasn't* anti-union?
"And we all know about the wage gap that grew up under the last, worker hating, National government."
That would be the Labour-initiated resession National cleaned up in their last term?
"3. Health. Press release after press release, faithfully repeated by the National party lapdog over at Kiwiblog, attacks government spending as "excessive." Press release after press release attack health for "poor quality" spending."
Actually, the party parrots DPF's lines usually :)
" Given that National wants to give huge tax cuts to its crony secret funders in big business,
you don't need to be Einstein to work out that they are going to have to find the money from somewhere."
Well, more intelligent than you, anyway!
Health is the biggest ticket item of all, and is consistently targeted in National press releases. Do the maths. National appears to want to take health back to the near-collapse of 1990."
Now I'm actually laughing - LABOUR was in power up to the end of the 1990 year.
But seriously, the last budget had $13B or so in extra spending plus surplus. There's so much *spare* money for tax cuts it's just no funny.
"National does not appear to understand that we are now in 2007, and the health sector unions will not allow that to happen without nmassive chaos."
Yea, we've all seen the chaos. Funny how it happened during Labour's term.
"Or is National just going to recklessly borrow and spend?"
You really haven't spent much time actually studying the political spectrum, haven't you?
...
"So National do plan to get rid of zoning ("YAY!" yells Auckland Grammar and the other elite schools keen on cherry picking to create a two tier system)"
Clearly, you don't read the newspaper either. Two words - "Grammer Zone". Only the rich get into these schools now, with zoning abolished, poor but bright students will have a chance. Those are the choices, pick one.