Thursday, May 19, 2011



Budget Day

It's Budget Day. In two and a half hours, Bill English will tell us exactly how he's going to screw us over.

And screw us over he will. The government has loudly signalled cuts to KiwiSaver and Working For Families, plus general belt-tightening all round (except for the rich, of course; they get to keep their unaffordable tax cuts). The only question is how badly he'll do it. This is an election year, and National wants to win, so they won't want to inflict too much pain. But since they're putting the pain off until after the election, maybe they're banking on it not sinking in before we vote.

Twitter is tracking the Budget on #budget2011. I'll be contributing to the swarm. I'll have another post when I've actually seen the thing and had a chance to read it.

Update: Meanwhile, over on Red Alert, David Cunliffe has a couple of posts on National's growth fantasies vs reality and the sources of the defecit. They make interesting reading. And no doubt, Treasury will add another set of fantasy projections this year, which National will in turn fail to meet.