So Roger Douglas would abolish Working For Families. Fantastic. There is so much wrong with that grand redistribution scheme;1/ Redistribution always involves privilege for one and punishment for another with the government deciding who is the winner and who is the loser. It accords too much power to the state.
2/ The dead-weight cost of redistributing money is utter waste.
3/ When people receive money without commensurate effort they work less. That is bad for productivity.
4/ As an attempt to boost fertility rates redistribution to families with children has not been successful. Note some of the most 'family-friendly' European countries have low fertility rates. The US has the highest in the OECD.
5/ WFF has created very high effective marginal tax rates. In fact some people are no better off if they boost their income through advancement or longer hours, as they move into the top tax rate bracket and lose WFF benefits. WFF dulls ambition.
6/ WFF is the hallmark of Labour governments. It is all the old schemes dressed up in new cloths. These schemes have never achieved their stated goals.
7/ Redistribution creates resentment amongst those who are not beneficiaries. In this case young, childless people. It contributes to their motivation to leave New Zealand.
8/ With WFF being used as a voting bribe, the cost of promoting it has been enormous including ridiculous expenses like megabucks to commission a musical theme.
9/ WFF acts as a subsidy to employers. The wrong people (not those targeted) end up benefiting.
Look. It is simple. Let everybody keep more of their own money. Let individuals take responsibility for their own decisions. The flow-on will be far more beneficial than any government attempts to grand plan society. Thank God someone of influence is talking sense at last. Again - hallelujah!! It's a good day.
9 comments:
Getting rid of WFF is a sure way to start reducing the beauracracy. Letting KiwiSaver members contribute direct to their providers is another.
A good policy, indeed.
Pity the spineless National Party cannot promise the same. It goes to show the Tories share the same paternalistic Nanny State than socialist Labour.
WFF should be consigned to the dustbin.
Hopefully National will agree and scrap WFF and pay out some sort of equal measure through tax cuts.
Lindsay, these things you describe became 'big issues' given the move from a full employment economy ... they are Douglas's legacy to NZ. Deregulation, removal of subsidies and free competition had to work quick in order to avert long-term (generational) unemployment and endemic dishonesty ... it did not. It has resulted in all those things you so accurately record ... for example: twenty odd providers for teacher training, and due to funding providers on the basis of EFT points - creating a need to pass trainees to retain funding - and a consequent extreme dumbing down of both teachers and students; it has resulted in gvts. throwing money at areas of 'noise and need' expediently and hence could be said to have even exacerbated our race problem.
Most of that you describe Lidsay is Douglas's legacy ... sometimes pig farmers should should simply remain pig farmers, supposedly he did that well ... but then again many say he was but a 'lackey' of the World Bank and the IMF, a little akin to how Helen appears to suckle off the UN.
& what Douglas and his cronies did was perhaps the single biggest deceit in NZ politics ... while Lange buffooned Douglas wove his web ... absolutely nothing to be proud of here.
It is impossible to scrap WFF and provide for some equal mesaure through tax cuts when some familes get more via WFF purely because employers pay tgheir staff low wages.
If you're getting paid less that your market price, you can get a better paid job. If your market price is too low, upskill.
The beautiful thing about the free market Dave.
If your market price is too low, upskill.
Problem is that many people are upskilling -and not getting high paid jobs so they go to Australia.
Thats the free market for you...
Dave, you just identified another problem with WFF. It acts as a subsidy to employers. I'll add it to the list.
No its a subsidy to wages, not employers. Subsidies to employers are things like Job plus and the like where WINZ beneficiaries get a kick start into a job where the Govt pays most of the salary for a year to keep wages down - and no doubt also contribute to their KiwiSaver scheme so that these beneficiaries have a couple of grand in the bank when they go back on the dole.
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