Garth George: Tax take shows Labour is simply scaremongering

No matter how long, how loudly or how often Helen Clark, Michael Cullen and co try to tell us there is no room for tax cuts, we, the electors, aren't going to believe them.

And the longer the Prime Minister holds off announcing the date of the election, the more brassed off we voters are going to become over this blatant manipulation of the electoral system.

If she thinks her procrastination is going to give Labour more time to mend its sagging fences, she is less politically astute than I thought she was.

In fact, I've begun to wonder whether the whole Labour machine isn't breaking down because its leaders can't deal with things when they go wrong.

They gave every indication of competence when all was well - more than five years - but since the wheels began falling off on Budget day in May, they seem to have been floundering.

I had to smile at Helen Clark's comment reported on Tuesday that "We're going to come to the point where this election will be a test of the National Party's credibility".

That seemed to me rather hilarious since the fact is that it's Labour's credibility that is on the line already and, if the polls are to be believed, is slipping further day by day.

As well it should. The scaremongering issuing from Labour about reductions in essential services such as health, education and welfare coming as a result of any tax cuts is seen by all but the most rabid Labour supporter as just that - scaremongering.

Because there is no doubt in anyone else's mind that there is plenty of room for paring Government spending without affecting sharp-end services.

The figures are clear. The tax take has risen in the years Labour has been in office from $30.2 billion to $46 billion; and Government spending has risen from $34.4 billion to $45.3 billion.

In round figures that is a $16,000,000,000 increase in the tax take and an $11,000,000,000 increase in spending. What has happened, I wonder, to the other $5,000,000,000?

I seem to recall back in 1999 that the patsy Jim Anderton led the argument for an increase in the top tax rate from 33c to 39c in the dollar. It was put forward as a means by which the Government would be able to afford to do something about poverty, and the inference was that it would be a temporary measure.

I supported it at the time out of the goodness of my heart, but in hindsight I should have known better. It had been so many years since we'd had a socialist government that I had forgotten the socialist propensity for knowing better how to spend our money than we do.

The Government has made much of its extra spending on health, education, welfare, justice and law and order but we have seen little improvement in any of those areas. In fact standards of education, justice and law and order have continued to decline.

Why? Because such is the socialist penchant for minutely detailed accountability that too great a proportion of every extra dollar allocated to any vote is eaten up by additional administration costs. And that explains why public servant numbers have increased by thousands in the term of this Government.

I know, for instance, of a charitable organisation which looks after handicapped children and adults - and does a fine job of it, too. When the Labour Government came to power, that organisation employed one person part-time to handle financial administration.

Today the organisation has to pay four full-time people to deal with financial administration, and as a result is having to consider closing some of its facilities, which used to break even but now run at a loss roughly equivalent to the additional administration costs.

The heartbreak of it is that the facilities which might have to be closed are highly valued by the residents, who derive great satisfaction and self-esteem from contributing to them.

On a broader front we all know that it would take a hefty tax cut to compensate the nation's wage and salary-earners for the considerable increase in the cost of living which has continued apace throughout this Government's term.

I have never believed the official inflation figures - and still don't - because I know how much more it costs me to live these days than it did, and how little additional remuneration I have received to compensate.

The outstanding one right now is the price of petrol and diesel (which includes, of course, a 5c Government road tax whacked on a couple of months ago). I would need a tax cut of $15 to $20 a week to make up for what it costs me to fill my cars now compared with a few months ago.

Another, and equally specious, argument against tax cuts is that the economy is slowing. Yet we all know that the economic doomsayers have been spouting that for years and that fiscal forecasters are about as reliable as astrologers.

Quite frankly I don't give a damn who wins the election, whenever it is to be held. All I know is that I won't be voting Labour. Because I will not tolerate being treated as if I were a mushroom - fed bullshit and kept in the dark.