Monday, May 16, 2011

Fuligin Budget

In the lexicon of NZ political-journamalist cliché [redundancy alert], the term 'Black Budget' will always refer to Nordmeyer's budget of 1958. Taxes were increased and breweries were pissed off, so conventional wisdom has it that this was a terrible misjudgement (apart from solving a major economic crisis) such as should never be repeated and should serve as a dire warning for always.

A new term will be needed for this week's budget, in which Finan Sminister Bill English will address the dire budgetary shortfall that no-one could possibly have anticipated when he cut taxes for higher-income earners last year.

There will be tax increases though no-one is calling them that. We have a special tax rebate targetted at non-wealthy parents with kids, the "Working for Families Scheme" [some clever-dick's idea of a clever title]... the rightwingers like to call this a 'hand-out' or 'an entitlement' so they can include it in the figures whenever they are making up bullshit about teh frighteningly high level of welfare dependency. They have repeated the same claim often enough that journalists have fallen into step with the description of WfF as a benefit rather than an absence of taxation. It is almost as if journalists are lazy and stupid.

Anyway, here's Pry Minister John Key foreshadowing cuts in the coming Budget to the WfF rebate, the "Kiwisaver" retirement scheme and the interest-free student-loan scheme:
We don’t want Kiwis to be thinking from year to year that these programmes could end up being axed.

We want to give them confidence that future governments can afford to run and maintain them.
As you have probably guessed by now, apart from Key and his proxies there is no-one else proposing to axe these programmes and no-one else eroding confidence that they can be maintained in the future.

It is never a good sign when a tory government promises 'restored confidence' or 'certainty' about something you had previously thought you possessed; it will the certainty of knowing it now belongs to someone else. But apparently New Zealanders like this sort of thing and want another three years of it since all the polls point to the re-election of these clowns later this year. I have no skin in this game since most of our money is invested elsewhere and here in Maison d'être we collect dual citizenships and passports the way other people collect stamps. Anyway, what sort of game is it where you're using human skin as a counter? That's just sick.

11 comments:

Substance McGravitas said...

"Working for Families Scheme"

As long as it's a really really rich family you work for the table scraps should be excellent.

Whale Chowder said...

Holy fuck, is nowhere safe from these assholes?

How many jobs were created by the tax cuts that are putting your budget in the shitter? Has anybody asked that? I mean, I expect Americans to be rubes and jerks but I've always understood the UK to have actual educational standards and the capacity to think critically and such.

I am soooo disappointed in you.

Substance McGravitas said...

United Kiwis.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Tax cuts for rich people didn't create jobs here in the USA.

But they did create a lot of debt, which we're supposed to pay for by cutting Social Security and Medicare.

Sorry, grandma, it's a shame about you living on cat food and dying in the gutter, but you understand. You wouldn't want to deprive the rich of more tax cuts, would you?
~

fish said...

Press release:

"Working for Families" will now be referred to as "Working the Families" or "WtF." Please use the new title and acronym in all future mentions of the program.

tigris said...

Weird that tax refunds etc to the poor-to-middle class part of the spectrum are entitlements we can't afford and should cut, while any talk of cutting the tax rebates/credits/actual subsidies to the wealthy end miraculously becomes a tax increase that will kill jobs creation and ruin the economy. I guess it's not welfare if rich folks are getting it, and it's not a tax unless they're not.

Whale Chowder said...

please, in my comment above, s/UK/Commonwealth/. Have mercy on me, I am, after all, a rube and a jerk.

Smut Clyde said...

tigris is CYNICAL.

Unknown said...

The Empoorers need new cloth and I for one shall not deny them.

cousne, not on the menu

Hamish Mack said...

Whale Chowder has nothing to be forgiven for. New Zild dreams of being mistaken for somewhere interesting.

tigris said...

Well, Smut, I guess I'm a little jaded as we're seeing it here right now, too, with the oil execs saying how unfair that Congress is considering cutting the special tax deals what with the records profits and all. My thought is that welfare is usually means tested.