Labour to spend billions more on welfare

One would have thought Labour might have learned from their last 9 years in power that promising people free money through welfare schemes like Working for Families, paid maternity leave and taxpayer funded childcare is unaffordable at the best of times but during the worst economic times since the Great Depression extending all these vote buying schemes is morally, socially and fiscally wrong.

There may have been a ray of light in these policies if they had actually worked for the populace but Working for Families has incentivised staying on the same income and thereby lowering productivity, paid maternity leave and taxpayer funded childcare has drained taxpayer coffers so that those that don't qualify for this welfare are struggling to pay for these things themselves.

These things are not only unaffordable but they don't actually work in the long-term.

If welfare was such a success when introduced into New Zealand in the 1930s under Labour it would have seen itself bow out of existence because it would have cured all the ills politicians said it would.

Instead what we know has happened is that it has fostered crime, relative "poverty", child abuse and murder and made hundreds of thousands of us dependent on their fellow taxpayer.

There are more of us on welfare in New Zealand than at any other time in our history and clearly things are not well in the garden of eden.

You would think then, that politicians, especially those on the left, would learn that doing more of the same that has got us here is the pure definition of insanity.

State welfare doesn't work and we need to recognise that.

For Labour to ignore these facts, especially at a time when our economy could be on the brink of collapse over the next 5 years, just to buy votes for an election win is just suicide for the country as whole.

The money for all this extra spending will come from borrowing from China and increased and new taxes across the board for all workers. There is no other way this can happen.

Billions more in extra spending on non-productive policies and possible difficulties in borrowing more money means this would put the whole country in danger of defaulting sometime in the future.

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C c c Darren Rickard 2011