Fuck tax cuts

The government's Tax Working Group released its interim report yesterday, which supported some form of capital gains tax. But Finance Minister Grant Robertson today wouldn't commit to taxing capital gains, with the usual "not ruling it out, not ruling it in" bullshit. He wouldn't even say whether he supported it personally. But he did take the time to tease the rich with the prospect of tax cuts:

Tax cuts in the election year are possible, Finance Minister Grant Robertson said this morning.

While not committing to reducing income tax in 2020, Robertson didn't rule out the move in an interview with Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking.

Oh for fuck's sake. Robertson is meant to be a Labour MP. And Labour is meant to stand for ordinary kiwis. You know how you make ordinary kiwis better off? Raising wages (which Labour is doing, by increasing the minimum wage and improvements to employment law). You know how else you make ordinary kiwis better off? By providing decent public services which save them money and protect them from poverty. Schools. Hospitals. Housing. Childcare. Universities. Parental leave. Public transport. ACC. Pensions. You know what makes all of that impossible? Fucking tax cuts.

Like local body politics with its "low rates" mantra, our politics is cursed with a party which explicitly wants to shrink the state and destroy all those public services which make our lives easier, and a party which supposedly advocates better services, but in reality has no spine and won't stand up for them. And as a result, every time the government has been doing well financially and has some money it could do something useful with, it has given it away in tax cuts to the rich, rather than investing it in our people. Every fucking time. No matter who is in government. And that's why we have shitty schools and shitty hospitals and not enough state houses and starvation-level benefits and crippling university fees, rather than being a Nordic paradise.

Tax cuts are why we have shit public services. Tax cuts - particularly Labour's 1987 raid which slashed taxes on the rich - are why we have inequality. Tax cuts are good only for the rich. So why the fuck is a "Labour" Minister making noises about them? Maybe it's something to do with his $250,000 salary, which gives him a completely different perspective on life from the other 99% of New Zealanders.