OMG. Here is Treaury's forecast for you but don't let their facts stand in your way:
Attachment 12150
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OMG. Here is Treaury's forecast for you but don't let their facts stand in your way:
Attachment 12150
Yes, basically constrain the spending as much as possible. Two ideas that immediately spring to mind:
1. Better design of the wage subsidy. This has turned into a fiasco, with calls for it to be repaid voluntarily, so it obviously wasn't designed well in the first place.
2. Don't increase the minimum wage during a lockdown, especially when the tax payer is footing 90% of the wage bill for a huge proportion of the population.
That's many more ways.
I'm trying to understand the relevance of this statement. Are you saying that if the top tax rate had been kept at 39% we wouldn't have had to borrow?
Yes, it would be. I haven't seen any arguments on this forum stating that the government shouldn't have borrowed.
Your recall is inaccurate.
We need to spend more given debt costs are so low. hundred year lows.
I think pretty much every country has been more generous than us. Australia doubled their welfare across the board for six months as well as provided a more generous wage subsidy. So we have recieved great value for money.
Find me a country which has done better, you can't.
Why is this thread still running - there is no Labour/NZ First Govt anymore
No, we need to kick start the economy, but be careful of amounting vast sums of debt that successive generations will need to repay. Just because interest rates are currently low, does not mean that we should borrow asd much as possible. That would be irresponsible for any government.
That's not a logical argument though. Even if the premise is true (I haven't checked), it does not mean that we received great value for money, and it still does not invalidate argument around the wider issue of inefficient spending and burgeoning debt. Treasury has indicated a combination of higher taxes and lower public services will be required to balance the budget as best we can. The massive spending and borrowing has created a significant long-term problem, as would be expected.