Richard McGrath over at Not PC:
‘NZ HERALD: “Govt faces 12.6b debt hole” – “Ballooning cash deficits grow faster than the government’s borrowing programme…”
THE DOCTOR SAYS: There is a major assumption one must make in order to accept what this article suggests, i.e., that the government should be allowed to borrow unlimited quantities of money to spend on whatever it wants, with the responsibility for paying this debt falling squarely into the lap of future taxpayers, some of whom are currently children or even unborn as yet.
Bill English readily concedes that part of this deficit blowout is attributable to his government, in its wisdom, deciding to shift responsibility for the leaky homes fiasco from builders, architects, materials manufacturers, local councils and BRANZ onto taxpayers—who had nothing to do with the construction of these houses.
Taxpayers have also been landed with responsibility for undertaking to provide partial earthquake insurance cover for homeowners, a function that the private sector could have assumed quite easily.
Part of the blame for the rising fiscal deficit is a “dwindling tax take.” But a responsible government would have realised that bad economic times would have generated less revenue, and cut their spending accordingly—not raised it by around one billion extra per year!
As for Bill English’s comments that “We’re still on track to reach budget surplus in 2015/16,” what a load of abject, unspeakable bullshit. What a complete and utter crock.
If a week is a long time in politics, then five years is never-never land….’
