The Taxpayers’ Union is slamming Labour’s fiscal
strategy of locking-in
Covid-era levels of government spending as ‘fiscal and
economic sabotage’.
Responding to Barbara Edmond’s
“fiscal strategy” Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director,
Jordan Williams, said:
“Labour’s pledge to keep core
Crown expenses around 33 percent of GDP is a recipe for New
Zealand to be poor. It barely retreats from Covid-era levels
and would make New Zealand extremely vulnerable to the next
economic shock. Inherently, big spending governments means a
small productive sector and a poorer New
Zealand.”
“Today’s announcement means that Labour is
going to need to pull a rabbit from its hat to get the
numbers to work. You can’t say you’re going to balance the
books, not cut spending, but claim your only new tax is a
‘targeted’ capital gains tax that won’t raise material
amounts in the short term.”
On Labour’s promise to
return the Reserve Bank to a dual mandate, Mr Williams
said:
“Arguing monetary policy can sustainably create
jobs is Muldoon-era
thinking. Giving the Bank two competing objectives gives
it somewhere to point the finger when inflation gets out of
control. Again, have these people learned nothing from
Covid? Price stability is the Reserve Bank’s job. Creating
the conditions for jobs and growth is
Parliament’s.”
“While Labour’s fiscal strategy is
bad news, at least Edmonds gets the institutional stuff
right with her backing of an independent Parliamentary
Budget Office and a return to the conventional OBEGAL
measure. The Taxpayers’ Union has long supported independent
costings of election promises and previously slammed OBEGALx
as a
fiscal-fudge.”
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