Sunday, May 11, 2014

A breath of fresh air

ACT's alternative budget is a desperately needed breath of fresh air:

This alternative budget highlights how far
National, Labour, The Greens and New Zealand
First have moved from sound economic policy.
These politicians peddle the self-aggrandizing
fantasy that if only they had a bigger role in the
economy, it would grow faster. If only they took
more of our money in taxation, spent it for us,
decided which businesses we should invest in,
who we should sell our products to, how we
should use our property, the terms on which we
may be employed and almost everything else,
then we would all be better off.
ACT is the only party that utterly rejects this
foolish and ugly idea.

For all seventeen pages go here.

One measure made me scratch my head. Abolishing the Ministry of Pacific Affairs. Only because there is no accompanying  abolition of Te Puni Kokiri, the Ministry of  Maori Affairs. Under Jamie Whyte ACT has indicated it wants to steer well clear of any perceived anti-Maori feeling. Fair enough. But this approach is hardly a principled, consistent rejection of publicly-funded ethnic collectivism.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pathetic.

No savings from this source [health, welfare or education] are assumed in the spending

So ACT is now officially a communist party. Thanks "Mr Incest". Thanks a bundle.

I guess the only good news is there are some cuts only to tertiary education (the PBRF & Marsden funds). But it seems like they're counted twice. So I guess ACT can't even add - but who cares? Nobody will take this seriously, and no-one will expect ACT would even get one percent of what they've asked for. So if you're going to write a pointlessly long document - why not do a proper job. Corporate taxes to zero. Individual income taxes capped. End welfare.

Which is why ACT's budget policy should fit in a single tweet or status updated: 1% off tax for every 1% of the vote. Nonnegotiable.


But then - if Labour & the Greens had the guts to just announce they'd legalise dope, it would be all over bar the shouting.

Berend de Boer said...

Lindsay: there is no accompanying abolition of Te Puni Kokiri, the Ministry of Maori Affairs.

There's obviously a clear difference given the historical relation and issues. The Pacific one is clearly race based. You can't say that the Maori one is all about race.

JC said...

"These politicians peddle the self-aggrandizing fantasy that if only they had a bigger role in the economy, it would grow faster. If only they took more of our money in taxation, spent it for us,"

Except Bill English has moved Govt spending as a proportion of GDP from 35% to 30% and is aiming at 26%.

In other words he's moved significantly to reduce the evils you mention above.

It makes me grin when the Nats announce some grand new perk for the populace and then you read its $6 million over the next four years :)

JC

Lindsay Mitchell said...

JC,

Using Treasury data I calculate Core Crown Expenses as a percentage of Nominal GDP for the years between 2005 to 2013

2005 28.9
2006 30.2
2007 31.2
2008 30.7
2009 34.5
2010 33.4
2011 35.2
2012 33.1
2013 33.0

http://www.treasury.govt.nz/government/data

JC said...

Linsay, I was using this as my guide.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10031743/Average-worker-to-earn-62K-English

JC