http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10497834

The truth is somewhere between Key and Cullen however I would stand by my reading of the general public perception.

the problem with this is it’s just empty assertion.

I think Graeme is correct about John F’s post and regardless as someone in the tax bracket you’re having a go at let me comment.

I support a well funded Public Service. If there was a choice between a well funded public service and tax cuts I would opt for a well funded Public Service.

There is however a significant difference between a well funded and a bloated Public Service as demonstrated in the National’s Nanny State Post

I think most people are happy with a well funded public service if that means adequate funds for Health, Education and similar public essentials. Unfortunately the Public Service in NZ has become synonymous with rising numbers of state servants in Wellington producing ever increasing reports and statistics with little meaning and attending neverending Hui

[you're quite right, as ever, Graeme. sorry John. That said, I stand by the point that a tax cut on proportion of cut contributed would give bugger all to those very wealthy on 150K and less than bugger all to the rest of us. SP]

Would everyone else happy with John and his mates on $150K, who make up 1.5% of taxpayers, taking over half of the cash avialable for tax cuts?

That would leave the rest of us with tax cuts of 25 cents a week. I’m putting mine in stocks.

And averages are always dangerous things to use in isolation. What if we take the whole 166 million and divide it based on percentage of tax paid?

Those earning $150k pay 16% of the tax. 16% of 166m is 26.5m. Divide that amongst the 45,000 people in that band, and I get $590/year, or half that if we use $83m/year.

(and I’m sure that’s still not actually how the money would end up distributed..)

Huge increases – and I understand that even now they are 15% short of the target (ie can grow even more) and where are the positive outcomes?

I have no problem with a cap on the number of Public Servants – and so much the better if there is a reallocation of say Public Servants to the front line which is what John Key has advocated. Outside o Wellington please show me a person who thinks we need even more pblic servants. Maybe that is why National controls all the provinces already.

Key seems to be making statements like the one Steve points out to make us think he can afford the tax cuts without cutting government services that matter to the average voter. Isn’t this just the beginning of the old right-wing trick of creating a crisis that then provides cover for parties like the Nats and ACT to implement their long term conservative agenda?

I mean, if you cut the funding for the back of house people in say the Ministry of Education – those who write the cheques for the schools, who help schools recruit teachers, who assess a school’s request for funding for new classrooms, etc – doesn’t that only serve to run down our schools? And, when you add in the large tax cuts the Nats are planning won’t that create a situation where we start running deficits again?

This would then provide the crisis in education that would allow them to justify deeper cuts in the education budget and with schools run down the public would feel less inclined to support the public education system. Next stop vouchers and more public funding for the private schools.

A wacky conspiracy theory? One might say that, but didn’t Bill English use a fiscal crisis in the late 1990s to justify a cut in the sacred cow – superannuation?