GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – National’s Neoliberal Tax Policy
Last Wednesday National leader Simon Bridges announced what his party’s tax policy would be.
Joining Reagan and Thatcher and Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson and all the neolberal chorus for the last 30 years – he revealed a tax cut scheme in which we would pay less tax if he was in power.
Yay! This is really good news, because as we all know tax cuts and less government spending means greater inequality. The rich will get richer the poor will get poorer! Brilliant!
And yes I’m being sarcastic because the last 30 years of this repugnant economic policy has turned us into a low wage economy with all the misery that entails.
In one noteable phrase Bridges said:
“Families have to live within their means, and so should the Government.”
No Simon – Goverments have to make sure the that families have the means to live !
If a government’s tax policy denies its citizens the means to live a decent life; by which I mean your income allows you a place to call home(albeit rented) put food on the table for your family , provide for your children’s education , pay for your clothing ,health,power bills and travel costs – and all without going into debt, then it has failed in it’s duty to govern with fairness.
Of course government can’t spend – can’t share the nation’s wealth more equitably- if it doesn’t rein in the rich who are currently legally able to avoid paying their fair share.
So .. are we going to see this Labour led government go after the wealthy for getting rich from their untaxed assets?
I’ve read Cullen’s interim tax review.
I’m not holding my breath.
Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.
Yeah right! NZ is just a big rort to the rich.
The rich are busy behind the scenes selling off whats left of our assets and let the place die, like what happend in Greece, then they will quickly leave here avoiding paying those the taxes, like John Key did.
So disappointing — and disastrous for the upcoming generations — to see that NZ does not have anything even close to approaching an equivalent of the “progressive/ democratic socialist” movement in the US of Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and the rest. And at this rate we likely never will. If extra-nice people like Jacinda and her very shy finance minister haven’t got the political will to risk a peek above the parapets to face the comparatively very mild corporate opposition in this country, who is going to?
No-one. They don’t have the political will or the guts.
Has Key really left NZ ? That’s nice.
“No Simon – Goverments have to make sure the that families have the means to live !”
100% Bryan.
Unfortu ately, National is not known for being sympathetic to low income families. Their voter base is affluent, landed, and upwardly mobile.
Simon Bridges tax cuts is geared toward their voter-base. It now lies with those 1 million voters who supported National from 2008 onwards as to what their consciences tell them. Their consciences or their wallets?
I think their consciences keep being drowned out by their investment advisors. And the Herald shrieking at them about dirty beneficiaries stealing all their tax dollars.
It’s hard for Simon though ços if he went to school at all, it looks like he went to Slithering, he can’t string a single sentence together, his colleagues have his back like Brutus had with Caesar and Jacinda’s nice so all he has in his armoury is bribery.