Mike Hosking: Dude, where's my tax cut?

Welcome to Budget day 2017.

Never a more important or influential one than in election year.

For the Government it is better than home field advantage.

It is like having home field, a sell out crowd.. and the referee on your side.
Well it is if you're the National Party in 2017.

The National Party in 2011 had to announce a deficit of 18 million.. earthquakes and global meltdowns will do that for you.

But here we are six short years later and they are swimming in money, and money is choice, money is options.

For a government coming to the end of their third term you could not have scripted this better.

After three terms you've pretty much run out of excuses, all the things you wanted to do, promised to do, have to have been delivered.

The days of blaming the previous government are well and truly gone.
Time generally is against you as well.

People tire of governments, it's sometimes self inflicted. Governments can look worn down by office, or they can be error prone.

So one of the things you'd look to do if you were scripting the life of a government is don't look like you're tired, don't look like you're taking it for granted, don't get dragged down by the weak links and most of all, best of all.. show everyone you actually know what you're doing. There is no better way to do this, than a budget.

You can be forgiven a lot of bad days if, when you open up the cheque book, you can present a set of numbers that's indisputably the result of good solid sensible fiscal management.

On that score this government has done exceptionally well.

The politics of course is around what to do with it.

There'll always be a hand out wanting more. There'll always be criticism over priorities.

I fear though despite all this economic success, I'll be disappointed this afternoon.

The government has worked pretty hard these past few weeks to play down tax relief talk.

The whole tax debate started last year on NewstalkZB in an interview I did with then Prime Minister John Key.

I asked what it would cost for a decent tax cut, quick as a flash he said, "3 billion" because he'd done the numbers.

Cue the headlines.

So as we sit here, this afternoon under a new leader, and new finance minister, we have that 3 billion and then some, in fact they forecast a surplus for the first 3 months of this year at 150 million.. it turned out to be 1.5 billion.

But sadly along with John Key going, so too has the dream of actually keeping a bit more of our money.

Unless of course English and Joyce are doing the old double psychology trick, but you only have to look at them to know that's not true.

So no real movement on tax ... not in the traditional tax cut sense and that's a shame.
Because, if it's true I would have thought that leaves them exposed.

Act have announced tax cuts, New Zealand First want tax cuts, both those parties could draw voters from National.

And it's not like the argument isn't there.. the average wage in the main centres now creeps into the top tax bracket, average wages paying the highest tax rate is insane, so there is logic for cuts.

But it may come, and here's the good news for the fiscal conservatives, it may come in at the expense of debt reduction, a buffer against troubled international times, and you couldn't possibly argue that isn't prudent.

But whichever way they go ... and maybe it's both.. that's the result of fiscal success.
A lot of money brings a lot of choices.

The pre budget announcements and what's left to come this afternoon is proof of that.