Andrew Dickens: Politicians do anything to get votes

I’m still in slack mouthed shock at Barbara Edmonds' performance on this programme yesterday.

After the release of the Government’s books showing we’re still in deficit and will be in deficit longer and with every day that passes our debt grows, Labour was quick to say National has screwed things up and we should have voted Labour onto the Treasury benches.

I would have thought that would mean they knew how to do things better. Therefore, they could perhaps tell you and I what should have been done. 

So, we gave them the opportunity to share their superior knowledge, particularly with you the voter, yesterday morning

And what did we get? Nothing other than slogans and a general tone of "just trust us things could have been better and we’ll tell you why next year". 

Now to be fair, she did criticise National's tax cuts. That was the moving of the thresholds and reinstating the rebates for landlords. 

That had the effect of reducing government revenue by $14 billion dollars. $14 billion that could have been used to repay the debt or build infrastructure. 

Now the thresholds were morally wrong, and I agree with resetting them. They were giving the government an automatic tax rise due to wage inflation.  

But changing them in a time of economic downturn when your revenue was reducing anyway was a self-inflicted wound on the books.

But they had promised them in the election, calling them a tool against the rise in the cost of living. But that was no better than Barbara Edmonds yesterday, it was a slogan to get votes.  

I don’t know if National knew that purposely reducing their revenue was unsustainable. Slashing their own revenue undid all the work they did cutting spending.

If they did know that was possible then that’s a piece of economic foolishness.

And this is what worries me the most about this country and all its politicians. 

They’ll say anything to get votes. They care more about keeping their jobs rather than making the country better. 

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