Lindsay Mitchell: Two contrasting letters

Friday, November 07, 2014

Two contrasting letters in the DomPost this morning responding to an editorial about child poverty:

Jim Rose said...: I thought the bottom tax rate was much higher in the 1990s – maybe 24%, then cut to 19% in 1998 under an agreement with Winston Peters.

Then dropped something like 10.8%, with the low income tax rebate in the 2000s; 11:43 AM
JC said...: The writer of the second letter proves the well known point of costs and benefits..

In the halcyon days pre 1986 NZ had a national debt of about 65% of GDP and growing.. we then spent the next 20 odd years paying that down instead of investing in something more productive.

JC; 5:25 PM
Manolo said...: Excellent letter. Well done, Lindsay.; 11:06 AM
Anonymous said...: There's nothing more productive than paying down debt. Welfare, for example, is completely unproductive. Borrowing 70 BILLION and blowing every cent on welfare is the worst possible policy imaginable.

The second letter writer is almost right. Simply policy changes. But not 1986, 1898 when Welfare was introduced into NZ. Now the only way you will be net financially positive from having a child is if you're an unemployed single parent. Result: more than half of NZ's kids are born to unemployed single parents.

You get what you pay for. Pay money for the DPB and WFF and all the rest - you'll get more kids to unemployed single parents. Provide 100% taxpayer funded 12hour per day childcare (People's Communist Monarchy of Denmark!) and you'll get very few unemployed single parents.; 8:17 PM

Lindsay Mitchell