KEY POINTS:
The major mistake most of us have made is to earn a decent income and not have enough children. Unless you are a low-income earner with a squawking litter of toddlers you are probably not overly impressed with Thursday's budget.
From Michael Cullen's point of view that does not matter - you were unlikely to vote Labour anyway because you are a middle- to high-income earner whose kids have either flown the nest or, worst of all, you have been waiting until you can afford to have babies.
Frankly, I would not wait too much longer. Thanks to rising prices, mortgage rates and New Zealand's anorexic wage structure, your biological clock will wear out before you get enough cash to breed.
Most people will be pleased to know that struggling, low-income families will get a boost, but the vast majority of us who don't fit into that category will be running our finger down the tax tables, pouting at the paltry sum we are being delivered.
We will get $12-$28 a week more, depending on what we earn. It would be wise not to look further ahead to the proposed $22-$55 cuts planned for 2011 because there are no guarantees a saddened Dr Cullen won't stand up in May next year and wearily shake his head, saying the state of the economy is such that those cuts will have to be delayed. He has done it before.
The average household income in this country is around $72,000. If you have two kids as well you can pick up a total of $43 a week extra thanks to a boost from Working for Families. If you are childless you will get just $28.
Predictably, and somewhat cynically, the Government has targeted the tax cuts at those who saved its backside at the last election. Remember last election night, when National's slight lead over Labour evaporated at the last minute when the results from the big booths rolled in like a tsunami out of South Auckland?
Labour is counting on those people picking up their wage packets a couple of weeks before this next polling day, finding the extra cash and making a mental note to trot out and vote Labour.
As a strategy it might even work, unless National can figure out how to give us more.
A buoyant Cullen last Thursday looked like someone who thought he had checkmated his opponent. He was satisfied he had left National little room to move.
When I spoke to Bill English he certainly sounded a little subdued. National does still have some options to find the necessary billions to make even larger cuts but they are big calls to make.
It needs to find the money somewhere and, rather than death by a thousand cuts to government spending, it will be tempted to look for a single "big ticket" item to slash.
For example, it could scrap the Cullen super fund, give us back our money and say save for your own retirement.
It could decide to end the Government contributions to KiwiSaver and use those billions to give greater tax cuts, telling us we now have a choice and can use that money to continue to save, pay off debt or just buy the groceries. When I suggested these options to Cullen he positively cackled with glee, saying there would be a big backlash against National if it tried any of those tricks.
He is right. These are potentially risky political moves but National has to find the cash somewhere and come up with a demonstrably better package of cuts, ensuring no one gets left out or is worse off under its scheme.
As an opposition party it cannot deliver just to its own core supporters, it must actively woo others away from Labour or the minor parties.
English remains a little shifty about when National will present its plan to taxpayers.
My guess is that Cullen's Budget has sent him and the beancounters in his office back to their calculators and whatever plan they had in mind last week has been put back on the drawing board.
There is an old political cliche that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them, but this election it is reversed. Poised to win, National could lose if it does not get its tax-cut offering right.
In the meantime, as a "rich prick", I am plotting what to do with the extra $28 a week in my savings account come October 1. Actually, come to think of it, there is not a lot of point because it won't be there. My car will have swallowed the lot.
