Taxes

Dr Cullen is rather rattled when he has to resort to the Muldoonist label. Umm Michael, Muldoon raised taxes and ran a huge deficit.

Lowering taxes to take account of an $8b surplus is not Muldoonist. It is in fact just plain non-ideological common sense. “We have taken more money off you than we can spend, so have some back”.

Westpac has pointed out that Cullen is planning to increase crown spending from 29.6 per cent of GDP in 2004 to 32.3 per cent in 2009. And even with all that (much of which would be wasteful) there would be large surpluses.

Westpac has also pointed out that more people moving into higher tax brackets since Labour gained power means the Government will have raked in an extra $8.7 billion when its promised tax cuts begin in 2008.

And even if one does need to cut spending for tax cuts, I’ve found a $500,000 start.