State of the Nation 1 - $5000 tax free a start, but not enough

I'll defer a "Fantail" state of a nation for another day to clear some of the must with a comment on the latest over at Tumeke on Phil Goff's State of the Nation. Bomber's report was interesting and personal, and strategically on the button. Specifically:

Goff's real trump card is his first $5000 tax free for all NZers. This impacts most on those who are earning the least and will be funded by a new top tax bracket that will be in the high 6 figure area so that professions not considered top tax bracket fodder don't fall foul of it.

The $5,000 tax free may be a trump card, but the difficulty Labour face this year was demonstrated in TV1's coverage of the speech. Their report didn't cover how Labour would pay for it: instead they cut to John Key saying that costly, overseas creditor "pixies (3x)" would pay for the cut - breaking up any the Labour narrative with what amounts to a bald opposition lie.

This is of course unsurprising coming from the national broadcaster, who have spent the last two years treating Key like a neutral political commentator and the vast majority of their stories focussed on taking pokes at the out-of-power opposition party instead of questioning the very in-power government. I remembered my jaw dropping when this soft-soaping started, the very first government policy release coming from the ACT party (appropriately). It was about on "cutting red tape" and passing legislation to allow people to opt out of the building code. (I reckon most of the good people of Christchurch are probably quite happy with about all that annoying bureaucratic tapes and codes stuff bout now). Mark Sainsbury interviewed on this Rodney Hide with all the rigour of a Swedish massage, and very little has changed.

Besides the media living in its own self-reflective balloon of public perception, The Youth Idol element of Key is definitely there - first time voters tend to "rage" against the incumbent government, and many young people know no government other than Clark's. Of course the real rebellion is to vote as Left as possible to try and get our society somewhere back to a reasonable centre again. Largely, that demographic is there for the taking, if they can be motivated. Most are at worst ignorant, if not poor, angry and scared.

Finally, the over 50K cadre should not be ignored. They're not homogeneous, and from my experience, household incomes have to reach 50K just for 2 people to be healthy and debt free - and that's renting, no retirement, no savings. That the tax brackets are marked at 14K, 48K and 70K gives a false impression of what is rich and what it costs to live in our society.
Markedly, it punishes and causes gripes for those struggling under 70K; and it groups all those people earning 70K with those earning millions, as if they have anything in common, in lifestyle or obligation to the community that has supported their success.

Phil Goff was right to point to those 700 multi-millionaires who grabbed another $1000 a week from John Key's tax cuts. That's 36 million from the wealth and health of our public services - gone.

So what's the state of our nation?

Let's see what the PM has to say later today.