See: PM’s Presser Audio & Report – Leaky Home Loan Scheme

When asked by Scoop at yesterday’s post-Cabinet press conference to name a couple of countries where tax cuts had resulted in economic growth, Prime Minister John Key cited the United States. Surprising, given that

(a) over half of the benefits from the Bush tax cut programme have accrued to only five per cent of the population,
(b) they cost more than the health reforms enacted by Barack Obama and
(c) since they were deficit financed, the Bush tax cuts have also added a huge $379 billion bill in interest payments to their initial $2.11 trillion in revenue foregone.

More to the point, the Bush tax cuts did not result in economic growth. For wider yet related reasons, the Bush era ended in the worst recession in decades. As New Zealand’s own recent history has also shown, there is no causal link between tax cut programmes that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, and economic growth. At best, such tax cuts appear to trigger only brief, import-driven retail binges that drive up inflation – what we get in tax cuts, we pay for soon after in higher interest rates – and leave us with a worse current account deficit.

Undaunted, Key is now urging New Zealanders not to feel jealous when they see that the bulk of the rewards from Thursday’s tax cuts will go to the wealthy few. That outcome is quite deliberate. The reason for doing so, Key explained, is to try and ensure that the well-paid – doctors and other professionals – stay in New Zealand, and do not head off overseas:

"We can be envious about these things but without those people in our economy all the rest of us will either have less people paying tax or fundamentally less services that they provide," he said.

He added that those on the top rate, expected to be cut from 38 per cent to 33 per cent, consumed more and therefore paid more GST.
"But ... those who pay the top personal rate fit into some core and critical categories for our economy. They include doctors, entrepreneurs often, scientists, engineers, lawyers, accountants, school principals, nurses," he said.

The top rate kicks in on income above $70,000.

"On Thursday [you will see] a deliberate attempt to make sure those people stay and put their skills to work here in our economy," Mr Key said.

This is complete garbage, of course. Given the recent OECD research that shows we already have one of the lowest tax burdens in the world, why would such people be driven to emigrate to countries where they would face a higher tax burden? High taxes are not, and logically cannot be, the reason they are emigrating. Almost certainly, it has more to do with the kind of society that these failed policies have generated over the past 30 years. In any case, there doesn’t seem to have been any research into the reasons why they are going – or into how big the payoff would have to be to achieve Key’s desired outcome of keeping them at home.

In passing, Key’s spin that tries to depict the wealthy paying more of the GST take as being a socially beneficial act – they spend more in GST, so they therefore deserve to be given more to spend – is breath-taking. The relevant issue with any consumption tax like GST is the degree of discretion involved. In reality, the poor pay a higher proportion of their income on GST, because they enjoy less discretion about spending a bigger share of their income on the basics to survive. How ironic then, that in virtually the same breath, Key should present his tax reforms on Thursday as serving the cause of fairness. Somehow, this goal will be achieved by rewarding the affluent who have been avoiding tax, by lowering the tax they will have to face in future. Yep, that sounds fair.

In fact, all these nominal goals – economic growth, fairness, retention of professionals – are rationales for the politics of greed. The one certain thing is that the programme of tax cuts on Thursday will increase income inequality in this country. To date, Key has been silent on how tax policies that promote income inequality will foster (a) economic growth (b) fairness and (c) make New Zealand a more desirable country for people to live in, and raise their children.

Leaky Homes formula

The core formula unveiled at yesterday’s post Cabinet press conference to address the leaky homes problem consists of a 25/25/50 deal. Central government (ie taxpayers) would meet 25%, local government (ie ratepayers) would stump up with 25% and the victim would meet 50% from fresh bank loans backed by central government.

Many of the basic details were still hazy. Such as, what would happen if the leaky homeowner then defaulted on their new bank loan. There would be safeguards, we were assured, to make sure that what got fixed was only what was originally intended and that no “betterment” was sneaked into the repair job. How this oversight would be carried out was unclear. The new plan was voluntary, and people could still choose to sue local government for its lax consent processes – but if people registered for the plan, they would have to forego the right to continue down that legal avenue. Only claims pertaining to the past ten years could qualify and could be registered with the scheme and – Key advised – it had been estimated that the formula would cost $1 billion, though this would not be capped. Those who met the conditions would be paid out, in terms of the formula. Where this money would from exactly – in the case of central and local government alike – was not entirely clear.

Given that Key presented the scheme as a means of resolving the leaky homes issue “ for once and for all” some commitment to fresh regulation and oversight would have been welcome, even if only as a signal that lessons had been learned and that the open slather errors of the past would not be repeated. No such assurance was given. No determination to ensure that those responsible would be pursued was made. We were all, somehow, held to be responsible. No apology was provided either, even though some of those on stage – John Banks and Maurice Williamson for example – were part of the government that had championed the deregulation of the industry that has now left taxpayers and ratepayers to pay for the consequences.

No matter how often the self regulated or unregulated market ends in disaster, it is still seen to be a good thing to scrap regulations on business, and to remove oversight of their activities. Cut taxes, even if there is no social benefit in doing so. Remove regulatory oversight, even if the public gets to pick up the tab later. Bob Dylan must have had the likes of John Banks and Rodney Hide in mind when he concluded long ago that “There’s no success like failure / and failure is no success at all.”

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