The Prime Minister, an endlessly agreeable politician, entertains talk of tax cuts whenever the Budget surplus turns out to be higher than expected. It is well past time that he stopped doing so and instead made the public better acquainted with its debt position.
John Key and his Government know very well that the reason they have managed to bring the economy through a recession and earthquakes in good shape owes just about everything to the very low debt left by the previous Government.
National in 2008 inherited net government debt at $10 billion. By 2012 the debt had risen to $50b and the Government rightly makes no apologies for running deep deficits rather than cut spending in those stressful years. But if it had been starting out with debt levels it is now still running, it would not have been able to cushion the costs of relief of the recession and the earthquakes without concern for the country's international credit.
We have to hope the next economic "shock" does not happen before 2020, for it is not until then that National plans to have the debt back down to the level at which Labour left it.
Yet the economy has been enjoying good growth since 2013. We are nearing the end of a fourth year of economic upturn and these are years the Government ought to be banking surpluses, just as Sir Michael Cullen did during the boom of 2000-2007. Cullen resisted pressure from his own party for social spending and from National in opposition who were constantly criticising the size of his surpluses and calling for tax cuts.