On Monday, Bill English announced superannuation cuts for everyone under 45. Meanwhile, according to the Herald's Claire Trevett, he's gearing up to offer election-bribe tax-cuts:
So the tax cuts will be the exception to the Not Today philosophy.
Yes - the same taxes that could have been put aside to pay for Gen X to have jam tomorrow will instead be used to provide jam today.
The tax cuts will be National's self-saucing pudding and they will be hoping voters have forgotten all about the plate of offal by the election day.
Some of that pudding may come in the Budget. National has hinted at 'family packages' aimed at lower and middle income familes.
We may see further changes to Working for Families and benefits targeting struggling families - changes that will also effectively bind Labour because it could hardly unravel them having declared poverty and struggling Auckland families as its own priority.
But Middle New Zealand may not be sated until a bit later if National opts to hold its main tax cuts programme over for the election campaign.
If she's right, we're going to see the spectre - again - of National cutting taxes now to reduce services later. And where will the generational benefit of the bulk of those tax cuts fall? Squarely on the Boomers. So they'll get tax cuts, and we'll get screwed - again.
