Ralston on promises
March 1st, 2009 at 11:30 am by David FarrarBill Ralston writes in the HoS:
The first 100 days programme was all about looking competent and appearing to honour National’s election promises.
Sadly, most of those promises were made in an entirely different pre-election economic climate when it seemed like we could afford them.
Still, Key seems determined to stick by those pledges even if it makes Bill English’s job harder when writing the next Budget.
As long as the Government doesn’t back away from its promised tax cuts it will survive even the blackest budget that English may have to devise.
In these times families are looking forward to even a small amount of tax relief and it is the one promise National cannot afford to break.
The Government can take a holiday on making contributions to the Super Fund. It can even axe the damn thing and nick the fast diminishing $12 billion to further boost the economy.
Most people won’t mind the loss of an abstract concept involving billions of bucks.
They will spit the dummy if they find the Government reneges on giving them that extra $20 a week.
Indeed.
There is of course a set of circumstances, where the out year tax cuts would be reconsidered. When everything else has been tried, spending reduced and the deficit still is unacceptably high, threatening the future. The OBEGAL needs to be able to move back into surplus over time.
Bit what is pathetic is all the commentators and editorials demanding that the tax cits be surrendered immediately – before the Government has even started to make an impact cutting waste, reconsidering contributions to the Super Fund etc etc.
Even the HoS editorial today does the usual job of advocating they should go, and ignoring the reality that National’s extra tax cuts were fully funded by spending cuts:
It is almost dishonest, when people advocate that the tax cuts can not be afforded, without mentioning that National’s tax cuts were fully funded by cutting spending on KiwiSaver – something which actually will help reduce the impact of the recession as the KiwiSaver subsidies would have removed the money from the economy, while the tax cuts will see most of it spent.
March 1st, 2009 at 11:40 am
…while the tax cuts will see most of it spent.
Well, not if the experience in Oz is anything to go by. The recent handouts, bonuses, call them waht you will have been spent, if that’s the word, on reducing debt.
If that’s the case in NZ, then leaving Kiwisaver alone looks the better bet as the pool of savings provides a greater pool of capital to fund borrowing. You know, how we’re always being told the workers should save so the capitalists can borrow.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 12:48 pm
When this government stops throwing billions of taxpayers dollars into DPB and other welfare abuse,
and when this government stops throwing billions of taxpayer dollars into the ridiculous maori treaty industry and other PC bullshit
– if and when they have done that – and are still short of dosh…… then they can talk to me about continuing to rob me of my high taxes
(pardon the double post)
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 12:57 pm
DON’T CUT TAX CUTS, CUT BLOODY GOVERNMENT SPENDING. And screw the HoS, this country is infested with socialist fucking morons so brainwashed they can’t see pass their arse’s. For fucks sake, the government is trying to stimulate the economy by spending loads of money. If people choose to spend more of their OWN money due to tax cuts isn’t that stimulating the economy, you just can’t win.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 3:11 pm
The National Party does not reward failure and unfortunately Michelle Boag, and Bill English for that matter, took National to its worst possible defeat at the hands of Helen Clark. I doubt that Bill English will ever lead the National Party again though he might like to. In many ways Judy Kirk has been an ideal National Party President. She has been able to work with some very able people, she has kept out of the media, though the staff work at times has been poor re not including GST on advertising for the 2005 election which gave the Labour Party so much cover for their blatant breach. But in the main she has been one of the better Presidents, perhaps not on the George Chapman level but not that far down.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I agree the govt should proceed with this year’s round of tax cuts, but its you DPF who are starting to look “pathetic”, and “ignoring reality” and “almost dishonest” as you keep repeating the line that “National’s tax cuts were fully funded by cutting spending on KiwiSaver”. That might have been the idea at the time. But a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. The dollars saved from kiwisaver didn’t have special “tax cut” labels on them. Due to the economic downturn, those savings are now too small to offset the drop in tax revenue at current tax rates, let alone pay for a cut in rates.
Vote:Its entirely legitimate for the media and anyone else to question if these cuts can still be afforded now. Its legit to argue that tax cuts should wait till the cost savings the govt is hoping for are actually achieved. You begin to look a tad hysterical when you start name calling if anyone questions whether election promises made in happier economic times should still be treated as holy law.
The better arguments for proceeding with tax cuts are economic and political – the signal tax cuts send about govt’s direction, the value govt places on productivity growth and expenditure control, the need for a fiscal stimulus etc. Bullshit accounting arguments about how the tax cuts were paid for already just don’t wash.
March 1st, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Calling for tax cuts to be discontinued is all about a sense of authority and nothing about economics. Get that straight.
Secondly, if National can waste its time at a job summit that has as its main idea a number of socialist peasant money-go-rounds, then the recession is not really taken seriously here, and you’d assume, is not really a problem afterall.
So lets stop with this silliness. National are not in a “different post election climate”. That’s just stupid. The recession didn’t begin on the morning of the 9th of November 2008 – out of blue, no warning – and all promises are off.
The promises made by National pre election would stimulate the economy either in a recession, or not. They did not approve any significant increases in spending. They did not campaign on more welfare. This is all just one big lie being sold yet again by a left leaning media to bring National further to the left.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 4:22 pm
If you want to talk about “all promises being off” and if the recession was actually taken seriously, you’d have Roger Douglas actively engaged in redirecting the economy because the situation would be so dire you’d need his skill.
But it’s not dire, is it.
Because no dire action has been taken and none is planned.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Jesusonarollerskate!
RogerfuckingDouglas is yesterday’s man.
Get over it, he had his chance, he fucked it, no-one (except a few loons) wants anything to do with him anymore.
If you’re stupid enough to wear a yellow jacket, and stupid enough to think that retailing in Newmarket is the be all and end all, then Roger Douglas is your man. For the rest of us, he’s just another washed up old fart out to pasture.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
oh, and btw, god is evil, not good.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Is Ralston seriously suggesting we chuck away the only provision we’ve ever made (as a nation) to support an ever-growing aged population (other than robbing those still working of growing amounts of their income in order to keep their elders)?
There’s a vast difference beween not borrowing to invest and withdrawing what you’ve already saved and spending it on a plasma telly.
As Patrick Starr and side show bob both point out, there are still significant clawbacks to be made in government spending. Would Ralston advise families to continue spending their money on Lotto, KFC and the TAB, and sell the family home to fund it?
I’d have thought someone who’s been as handsomely paid as Bill would have a few investments by now. Does he understand that – until he chooses to realise them – their value is just figures on a broker’s computer screen? And that those figures move up and down in cycles? Or has he taken his own advice, sold up, and spent it all on sports car?
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 4:40 pm
RogerfuckingDouglas is yesterday’s man.”
But his ideas are eternal…….as long as facts are facts and A=A Douglas’s remedies are whats needed now and always…
There is only ever one road that is the right one to take to get where you are going and Roger Douglas stands on it ready to take us on the journey.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 4:42 pm
You poor, por, sad moron.
As bad as the idiot god botherers and homeopaths – fuck the evidence, god, rudolf steiner and roger douglas are the eternal truths!
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Roger is old, so he’s useless. And Rodney has a yellow jacket so he’s useless too. The colour yellow and old age must be avoided at all costs when making economic corrections. Ok. Did you get that out of the socialist handbook did you?
You’re the moron borker. My log in name here has nothing to do with god.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Roger is wrong, so he’s useless.
Hide has nothing going for him except the yellow jacket, so yep, he’s uselss too. Yellow is the colour of cheap, just like Pak n Slave.
Wrong and cheap must be avoided at all costs when making economic decisions.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Mr Borker, you really ought to get that fluffy little bunny rabbit. You’ll feel much better. When you start to feel better about yourself, you’ll be well on the way down the long journey to recovery.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 5:13 pm
The way billy goes on I think I’ll get a big portrait of Roger Douglas and hang it over the front door. Should scare off any socialist within a 100 meters of the house.
Vote:March 1st, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Rex, superannuation schemes are the root of the evil we are buried under today.
Vote:They are a collection of money pooled to invest? where the manager’s think they can get the best returns. Most often there are high fees and all care but no responsibility. No different from the Life insurance scams and there is plenty of literature around about them.
So, as in Aussie when you have 9% of a persons earnings going into a scheme, that adds up to a lot. What to do with all this money? Lend it to private equity investors or hedge funds etc who then proceed to vest it out so they can make a return. Come to NZ and buy up any building that will pay more than 5%. Bought up all the shopping and soon we will pay dearly for our groceries.
All on the backs of super funds.
Americans have just lost their savings for the second time in about 10 years.
Aussies are about to. Yet to hear much about that but its coming. Starting to leak out.
Most now will have no retirement funds. How do you think they will feel about that?
Evil institutions.
March 1st, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Viking2:
I’m one of them. The average return from my super fund over the past five years has been zero (gains for four years, a huge loss last year) and I expect this year will see it dip into the negative.
But the point, isn’t it, is the return over a person’s lifetime? And someone who starts putting in 9% at, say, age 17 has about 50 years of average returns on which to bank.
I’m not entirely happy with the decisions made by my fund managers, but I do have the option of choosing the level of risk vs return.
With the growing proportion of the population reaching retirement (albeit that that age seems to be creeping higher) what alternative does society have?
Vote: