National’s Impending Swingeing Cuts

31 comments on “National’s Impending Swingeing Cuts ”

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1. Pat 1

   26 January 2011 at 2:52 pm

   What is “Swingeing”?
   • Bright Red 1.1

     26 January 2011 at 3:04 pm

     http://lmgtfy.com/?q=swingeing
     • Bunji 1.1.1

       26 January 2011 at 3:12 pm

       🙂 Thanks Bright Red, I’m going to start using that from now on…
       • bobo 1.1.1.1

         26 January 2011 at 4:01 pm

         Funny that I thought it ment swing voters who whinge..
2. BLiP 2

   26 January 2011 at 2:55 pm

   Government cuts – working a treat in the UK, ain’t it?
   • Craig Glen Eden 2.1

     26 January 2011 at 3:07 pm

     Hell so you mean cutting public servants jobs isnt going to solve our debt problem and what our economy will stall and splutter like Spains. Oh shit thank God for the Pixies at the bottom of Keys garden then. Oh no wait New solution just in,sell our/public assets to rich people that will do it

     Ha, alls good then, role out those prisons aye .
   • Bunji 2.2

     26 January 2011 at 3:10 pm

     I thought you were going to link on something more like this, what with the large shrink in UK GDP announced today.

     2 right-wing governments making cuts, 2 economies shrink in their last announced GDP figures whilst most of the rest of the world strongly rebounds… Any connection? Probably not…
     • BLiP 2.2.1

       26 January 2011 at 5:35 pm

       Yeah, I saw today’s stuff but then noticed that the Guardian had written about the unavoidable consequences *prior* to the implementation of the cuts. Still, as the Tories would have us believe, its probably just the weather . . . Yeah, right.
       • Bunji 2.2.1.1

         26 January 2011 at 8:24 pm

         It was talked about before the election, so the British people can’t say they weren’t warned…
         But then I guess a majority didn’t vote conservative and the lib-dem voters didn’t think they were voting for cuts… if only they had MMP, eh? We don’t know how lucky we are… (although we won’t be very lucky if National get back in…)
3. Policy Parrot 3

   26 January 2011 at 2:58 pm

   John Key is truly in lala land with this series of proposals.
   He talks about Mum and Dad investors taking a share in majority held state assets, but when Mum and Dad have had no wage rises since he came to power, and the cost of living has skyrocked – how the hell could they ever afford to invest in shares, even if they wanted to?
   • Bright Red 3.1

     26 January 2011 at 3:05 pm

     and mum and dad are going to have to pay out of their diminished wallets for services they formerly got from the public service, or pay more.
     • orange whip? 3.1.1

       26 January 2011 at 3:27 pm

       The tax cuts should help with that…

       Oh hang on, Mum & Dad paid for their own tax cuts with GST, ACC, and other tax increases.
4. ghostwhowalksnz 4

   26 January 2011 at 3:50 pm

   I notice that Keys claims about reducing debt are not “promises” but signals

   I smell a weasel. As their proposals will further kill growth and debt will increase
   • ZeeBop 4.1

     26 January 2011 at 5:14 pm

     Key’s signals in increasing the burden of taxation onto the lower and middle deciles is that if you want to pay less tax then don’t work so hard. So rather, work harder at activities that are not taxed, like growing your own food, bartering your skills for drinks or other peoples skills, and just go off the grid. GDP should drop, shops dry up of consumers and we will all live happily ever after. Remember if you want to pay less tax don’t work so hard.
5. Marty G 5

   26 January 2011 at 5:52 pm

   Excellent post bunji. I’ve never seen this stuff explained so well. Personally, I think journos shouldn’t be admitted to the press gallery unless they can explain the difference between nominal changes and real per capita changes, and how to calculate them
   • lprent 5.1

     26 January 2011 at 6:01 pm

     I’d agree – it is a clear analysis of the pitfalls of what Key wants. But from what I can see most political journo’s don’t know what a budget is. This may be somewhat beyond them.

     Most of them are like Tracey Watkins or Duncan Garner – more obsessed by appearances and press releases than having any understanding. As such they are more like the obsessional trolls with their key phrases that hang around here.

     You’ll probably have to wait until the business analysts start having a look at this topic (like Brian Fallow et al) before there is any intelligence about the downstream dire implications. For instance as we saw in the 80’s and 90’s, one of the issues that falls out of this is on required infrastructure.

     Infrastructural development gets continually deferred because it is politically easier than any of the alternatives above. That was the reason that so much basic roading and other transport got done in the 00’s – it’d been ignored by national under their sinking lid policies in the 90’s. All of the transport infrastructure that is going in even now comes from the planning and preliminary letting of contracts under Labour. Under tehse policies I wouldn’t expect to see anything substantive coming out of the pipeline.
     • Bunji 5.1.1

       26 January 2011 at 8:28 pm

       Aw, gee shucks guys.

       I was about to add Another Three Reasons Privatisation’s Bad… but Marty you’ve got them and upped me another 3, so ‘great post’ right back at you.
6. Carol 6

   26 January 2011 at 6:17 pm

   But they haven’t been able to ignore Hone, who has come out against the proposed cuts and said that the Maori Party should pull support from NAct before the May budget. He’s also not ruling out taking over the leadership of the party. He’s also critical of the party spending so much money on Mai Chen – as reported on TV3 news tonight.
   • Carol 6.1

     26 January 2011 at 6:27 pm

     Hone’s response is here:
     http://www.3news.co.nz/Hone-Maori-Party-should-walk-away-from-National-coalition-/tabid/419/articleID/195989/Default.aspx

     He says:

     He does not like Mr Key’s plans for $300 million in spending cuts and welfare reform.

     He wants to set some bottom lines – like a big rise in the minimum wage to $14 an hour or even more.

     “We need to make a public statement, ‘Dear John, these are the bottom line, if you can’t meet some of these things, we must consider walking away from the coalition in the best interests of advancing the status of Maori’,” he says.
7. Jenny 7

   26 January 2011 at 7:13 pm

   Key shows his teeth.

   Announcing the Welfare cuts and privatisations before the elections, John Key seeks to create the environment necessary to claim that electoral victory will give him a mandate to impose the most extreme right wing administration, with the most openly reactionary policy direction seen in a generation.

   No matter how much Key and his backers would have loved to implement this sort of regime in their first term. The fact is, that they just just couldn’t claim to have any sort of mandate.

   That will be all different in their second term.

   We need to mobilise everyone opposed to National’s plans, to do what ever they can to prevent a National led second term government.
   • Craig Glen Eden 7.1

     26 January 2011 at 7:44 pm

     Agreed that is going to mean the Greens being disciplined and putting up a united left Government in waiting position, not playing the Labour are not left enough game ( rehashing the Douglas/Prebble horror as if it was yesterday) that will only enable National to get back in.

     Antispam word: “enemy” thats National
     • Jenny 7.1.1

       27 January 2011 at 8:08 pm

       Craig of Glen Eden. This is the last thing we need.

       Is your demand for “the Greens being disciplined”. – A condition of coalition with the Greens?

       And if it is, what is the point?

       Why would people vote for the Greens after “being disciplined”?

       They might as well vote Labour.
8. jbanks 8

   27 January 2011 at 9:51 am

   You idiots are dreaming if you think that Labour won’t be doing the same.

   According to Treasury’s 2010 tax model data, a $5,000 tax-free bracket would cost $1.58 billion (10.5% of all income in the zero – $5,000 range). Reintroducing a 39% top tax-bracket on “incomes comfortably into six figures” would claw back only $290 million if the threshold is $150,000, or $558 million if it is $100,000. Which means that 60 – 80% of the threshold will be paid for by reducing avoidance. Goff’s statement that

   “No one knows exactly how much is lost by people dodging their tax – but it’s been estimated in the billions.”

   is carrying an awful lot of weight here.

   http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2011/01/good-policy-ruined-by-magical-thinking.html
   • Colonial Viper 8.1

     27 January 2011 at 8:14 pm

     Of course Labour won’t be doing the same, they don’t have the cluelessness and incompetence of Bill and John, further Labour won’t be running the country just for the top 5% of earners to make even more money.
     • jbanks 8.1.1

       28 January 2011 at 11:13 am

       Nice vague rhetoric.

       Now where is Labour getting the money from again? The figures don’t add up but all you muppets just want to ignore that.
   • KJT 8.2

     27 January 2011 at 8:34 pm

     I suspect that introducing stimulus at the low wage end of the economy would also increase the tax take as low income earners spend extra money in local businesses.

     As the tax working group found half of the top earners paid little or no tax. Closing trusts and other loopholes could earn a lot of tax off the bludgers.

Links to post

1. The Standard: posted on 26 January 2011 at 1:41 am
2. kris_b: posted on 26 January 2011 at 2:25 am
3. Gabriella Turek: posted on 26 January 2011 at 7:24 am
4. Ben Clark: posted on 26 January 2011 at 7:51 am
5. Matt Jeffs: posted on 27 January 2011 at 10:23 pm

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