Looking for news that actually mattered, I desperately strayed on to a Tracey Watkins article in the NZ Herald yesterday. It wasn’t much of a read, but one paragraph did impress me in terms of its sweeping claim to know the mood of NZers on tax cuts. Watkins said-

“There doesn’t appear to be any groundswell for tax cuts and after years of belt tightening people would probably rather the money was spent on areas like health.

That’s why tax cuts had already been taken off the table for this year’s budget – that and the fact that any cuts would have been minuscule at best.”

Really? NZers are happy with what the govt takes from their earnings, and want more spent on health? They now work until Wednesday night every week to pay for govt, and work Thursday and Friday for the money they get to keep. They want to work Thursday for govt too?

As for health, the system costs about $16 billion to run already. If you divide that cost among the approx 2 million net taxpayers (if there is that many) its around $150/ week. People want to pay more than this? On top of the $135 they pay for education, and the $230 they pay for welfare?

Well, anyway, why worry. Its not sustainable in the long run, and its only the govt’s immigration policy that makes it look like its affordable now. What happens when we run out of room for rich Chinese communists? Who are probably only paying the interest on the $70 billion debt anyway.

BTW, the chart only shows the net accumulated debt from recent govt deficits. Real debt is here.