Anderton's 'Soak The Rich' Policies, The Politics Of Envy

ACT Finance Spokesman Rodney Hide said today that Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton’s renewed zeal for increasing tax on the “rich” was proof that the government’s economic policies were failing.

“Increasing the tax rate to 39 cents for taxpayers earning over 33 cents produced no extra money. The government has had to reduce its tax take forecast for this year by $697 million in just six months. That’s because hiking taxes sags any economy and drives people and businesses off-shore. Now finding himself short of taxpayer revenue, Anderton’s solution is to increase taxes even more. That would only make matters worse.

“The best thing Anderton could do to boost the economy is to drop the top rate of tax to twenty cents.

“The 7.5 percent of taxpayers earning over $60,000 already targeted by this government pay 40 percent of all income tax. They are already paying more than their fair share. Their taxes should be cut as a matter of fairness and as a matter of economic development," concluded Rodney Hide.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>