Just looking back on Thursday's budget.
It wasn't really my cup of tea because it didn't cut back on spending enough.
Lets face it it was politically safe and boring to the max -just what Key and Co need to be elected for a further term.
What was needed though was a massive cut back in the 10s of billions of wasteful social spending over the last ten years that got us in the current mess. Working for families, free money for students and that ridiculous "Gold Card" for seniors that will cost us dearly in the future amoungst other brain dead spending. We simply cannot afford these things.
Nobody got anything in the budget except another unaffordable socialist bribe, the home insulation scheme - stop insulating yourself with my money, keep yourself bloody warm!
We didn't get back the high taxes we paid over the last ten years either. Tax cuts were cut.
A really dumb move practically because we all know tax cuts stimulate economies more than any other tool but a good move politically because it looks like Bill English "cares" about the public purse.
As bitter as a National Party 2009 budget is to swallow, one doesn't have to broaden ones imagination too far to surmise how much worse the budget would be under a Helen Clark Labour Government.
We would have had more of the same that we had under the last 10 years - Phil Goff has confirmed that many times over the last 8 months by reiterating we should be spending money we don't have. Taxes would have gone up instead of being just cut, we would have borrowed and spent our Children and Grandchildren's economic livelihood like Kevin Rudd, Barrack Obama, Gordon Brown and a number of other brain dead socialist morons around the world have over the last 8 months and interference from our Government would be more akin to a Stalinist regime only seen in North Korea.
We must remember the gleeful way Micheal Cullen gloated to National before the 2008 election that he had spent all our money, there was nothing left in the cupboard -"eat that!" to get a grip on where we would have gone from 2008 to 2011.
The man should be shot as treasonous for doing that but imagine his tax and spend regime under an economy in recession rather than the booming one that he inherited.
Yep, the 2009 Budget was boring but it is just what we need at a time like this, the alternative Labour Budget would have given us the Icelandic economic chills and brought us to our knees in short time.
At least with National we have a chance.
c Political Animal 2009
