A few thoughts from today’s Agenda:
Questioned about why National would introduce another tax rebate, having endlessly criticised Working for Families because of its complexity, English says ‘we do, in the long term, want a simpler tax system’. So, be on notice, Working for Families is under threat from National – they would ‘eventualy, but not yet’ replace these targeted tax rebates with tax cuts (for the wealthy, naturally)
English deseperately trying to defend trickle-down economics without naming it was a little sad. He must miss the 1990s, when he could just say what he believes.
He says National would stand behind the vulnerable. The most vulnerable workers (people on incomes from $14K to $24K, working families where the parents each earn less than $44K, and anyone on Kiwisaver) would be worse off under National. Meanwhile, the most wealthy New Zealanders would get higher tax cuts the higher their income. National would stand behind the vulnerable alright, as they pushed them over the cliff.
Rawdon, ‘the top 20 countries getting together and coming up with a unilateral solution’. Saying unilateral rather than universial or multilateral once sounds like a slip up. Doing it twice in a row suggests you don’t know what you are talking about.
I’ve read everything David Skilling’s New Zealand Institute has published. Universally, the work is poorly researched and provides threadbare arguments, usually lacking any empirical evidence, that lead to a radical, neo-liberal pro-rich ‘solution’. Look at his ‘solutions’ to the credit crisis – tax cuts for business, selling off public assets, tax cuts for rich expats coming back. Basically, tax cuts for the rich masked as an economic package. No evidence that these would do anything for growth and nothing for most Kiwis. But ‘radical economic package’ sounds impressive, eh?
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