I could think of something really really tasteless, but won't lower the tone of proceedings quite so early. :)

Under this limit expenditure will grow no faster than the annual increase in the rate of population growth multiplied by the rate of inflation.

But I will be bitchy?

A throwaway comment or the real attitude of PA participants to the older generation that surfaces periodically ? How are you different from John Key?

ETA: I think you have totally misread Keith's rhetorical intent.

While the point is not specifically about Keith--I have been a regular for a long time on this site to sense the tone.

Banks as Regulatory Reform Minister?
– Master of taps and spigots, enlarger of hoops
and fine print, exalted Less-Bettererer of Rules...
the mind?

Who would have thought!

@Bulbul: Keith was obviously, and sarcastically, noting that you can't just wish away the bleeding obvious spike in superannuation costs coming down the pike without 1) dramatically raising eligibility very quickly or?

the real knife?

My thought on reading about the charter schools clause was that it was a means to fund the hyper-religious evolution-is-a-theory sort, rather than the attractive bits.

Not intended.

People also mistook a certain Jonathan?

and gee didn't National wage war?

A touch of ageism towards baby boomers you say? A hint of resentment towards the most selfish, greedy and egocentric generation ever born in any civilization anywhere you opine?

I'd agree, there's some of that. The predominant demographic here?

Also part of their last confidence and supply agreement as well.

With the legislation currently sitting before a select committee (I submitted, who else did?).

But that's just the formula under normal circumstances. Through omission?

TABOR, well,?

No sense of humour if you complained, its sarcasm, it is the truth, that's how they are
See a pattern?

"Because it's silly" and "not at all" may?

But the moment they become "Boards of Trustees constituted under Part 9 of the Education Act 1989" they are.

Perverted?

California cut a lot of immunisation programs this year for a saving of USD18 million. Yet California decided to build 54 miles of high speed?

What sort of sacrifice were you thinking of? And would it be universal?

It is?

Runs away quickly.

Yeah, what everyone else said. I could have said "but decreasing numbers is not actually an option, because we'd have to deport/murder them, and that's not okay". Instead I made a joke?

Inverse evidence based policy

Moreover anyone who believes that ACT had done the necessary groundwork to have these policies ready to go is gullible beyond belief. These?

e.g. I was there when Thatcher introduced the poll tax. And I considered it, and decided it was fundamentally?

What? The baby boomers are now responsible for the Industrial Revolution, too?

+1.
And frankly, I'd support asset-testing (yeah, I know of the ideological fish-hooks...)

I have, several times, pointed out that 'babyboomers' are?

I was thinking more of the consistent denial of the last 10 years...

You know what, I don't wish to sound like I'm kicking Phil Goff but Key's a rather banal object of scorn. The outgoing leader of the Opposition has spent 27 of the last thirty years being well-compensated for?

and then it blinked and everyone missed it :)

The least one could do, then, is get out and vote? It's not as if there isn't as much choice as there used to be in the past.

I have it at $157,900 as from 1 July 2011.

Can I have that too?

While we debate a future problem, is "nature" geting on with fixing the problem.

Have a look at the trendline of NZ births from Stats department at

http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/population/births/births-tables.aspx

Charting it shows that shows births have been going up since 2005 and are now at levels last?

$141K. They put it up just before the election.

No, of course it isn?t ? it?s not as if the Renumeration Authority is controlled by legislation or crazy shit like that. In the great scheme of things, I know it?s chump?

I don't think you're reading it right. Completed fertility for women born in the 1930s (who would have been having babies?

Who do they think they are
talking 'bout their...
R-Re-Re-Remuneration!

People try to put 'em down
Jus' because they get around
Ding they get is lawful I'm t-told
Hope they dry and blow?

Cyclepath.
He don't hafta show ya nuffink.
We don't need no edjakashun...

I can't see that it would be proper to exclude the direct expense allowance from the calculation. It's paid and taxed exactly the same way as everything else.

It's a concession to a party that got 3.65% of the?

Huh? The ACT party this term got 1.1%. It's a concession this term.

That the words were present in last terms agreement has no relevance, if the law were passed last term then yes it would be a?

That's the key point. Anyone who believes this is really an ACT policy and not a National policy they were too scared to be publicly admit is their own is too gullible for words.

spineless much

Rounding it to 1% makes so much sense
#occupy

Fine, Russell. Since PAS is a troll-free zone, please delete the comment at my request and I'll be more careful about staying on-topic in future.

MP remuneration, excluding taxis and spending on natural disasters, will be subject to a spending limit.

Under this limit an?

Seems that the Herald is becoming the mouthpiece for the ACT party – first endorsing charter schools and now this.... both of which have come in under the radar of the election campaign.

But what it does do is to confirm my sense that?

"Spending cap should make us better off"

The definition of core operating expenses will exclude finance charges, the unemployment benefit, asset impairments and spending on natural disasters. Those exemptions should give governments ample room to provide relief in?

And what "look" the gear used the?

Recall the government getting away scot free in the last term with "capping" the asses of several thousand public servants.

Way to do it? Day one of parliament the first day a new Labour led government is sworn in, repeal it by ramming it through under urgency. The tinpot loons at the Hearld would barely have?

now there's a re-run worth re-running

In Helen Clark's 1st?

And when it's the opposite side of the fence, they won't go quietly. Case in point – the golden handshakes under the Shipley administration, and later on, Christine Rankin pushed?

Probably Roughan. He tends to like unexamined truisms about fiscal probity.

Whereas the newly appointed editor-in-chief Shayne Currie will probably remain focused on the kind of stuff he oversaw at the Herald on Sunday. John Roughan is increasingly coming across as NZ?s de facto William Randolph Hearst.

And I think the Herald was successful. Labour?s time in government was defined by that first?

Graeme, I have been trying – unsuccessfully – to find examples of where it hasn't had a detrimental effect. Needless to say, perhaps, nearly everything?

Wasn't the agreement last term simply to support it to first reading? In which case, anything beyond dropping it is a concession (though more?

The Nats got elected with a program of austerity and this is an austerity measure. Since Labour run on an anti-austerity platform when?

California. Sorry, having some connectivity problems today but someone can no doubt find links about what a disaster that one was as well.

but they're hardly offering to roll back the ones to the wealthiest which have not had the broader benefit English claimed for them.

If they insist on 'austerity' it should be for everyone, not just those most reliant on state services and least able?

Merkel/Sarkozy are proposing some for the eurozone.

Choose not to conduct their business in public quite so much. There, fixed that for you.
As Josh Arbury notes regularly, Auckland Transport resorts to secrecy?

And still they go bullimic on holiday highways and corporate/agricultural welfare. It goes to show that all austerity?

Well yeah, but the right are the only lot offering austerity so they get to offer their stylings without any competition. If the?

Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, Spain.

No. The agreement on this was to send it to select committee with a goal of passing a spending cap into law.

cf. three strikes, which was a bare promise of a select committee hearing with nothing more.

I'm pretty sure you'll be looking a while to find examples of where this has been tried. It's ludicrously tame as spending caps go.

Yes, the Nats did say they?

Joshua also noted that the way the CCOs including Auckland Transport were set up by govt did not require their business being public. Len Brown and the Council extracted some concessions beyond that but they can't overturn a legislated?

skimping on the sackcloth – probably NSFW in some workplaces

That's true, but it's also not required that their business not be conducted in public. They could choose to conduct the majority of their business before the?

A National-led government

Parliament binds future governments to things all the time. That's pretty much what Parliament does.?

And of course, the Holiday Highway to Nowhere.

James Millar:
National?s transport policy is a $26 billion barrel of?

That's how it works in a parliamentary democracy too. The Governor-General appoints a Prime Minister with confidence of the House, not a party, and that's the way?

This is a common error in thinking. What Joyce would like is nobody other than the Minister having control (who wants?

Yes, but a Budget is not an executive thing, it is a Parliamentary thing. So the Public Finance Act can be understood as a way of protecting Parliament's ability to understand and make decisions about proposed Budgets. This proposal is a?

Isn't that why they have to pass a Finance Act every year to give effect to the budget?

Not really – the massive preference for funding new highways at the expense of local roads, basic maintenance and public transport infrastructure is a deliberate intervention in the market. The current crop of Nats combine faith-based neolib nuttiness with standard 'daddy knows?

oh I'd say they know exactly what they're doing

Ah, no, that's standard pork-barrel jobs for the boys, the boys being lots of road construction companies who want long?

I don't know. How much food would John Key's extra $1000 per week from the last round to tax cuts buy him? Sounds more like a recipe for?

I thought it was about saying "we should have a government just?

How would this proposal, if enacted, restrict Parliament's ability to do anything at all?

c.f. The Colorado taxpayer bill of rights, which did?

Saying "might" is being disingenuous. We know darned well that demographic changes will increase the cost of health services and retirement income support over the next two decades. What expenditure will be cut to pay for?

I do tend to agree about that, unless this Act is constantly used in the face of incompetent opposition as sufficient justification for doing what the neolibs want to do anyway – drowning, bathtub, etc.

It is inflation indexed.

Dammit, Graeme! You lawyers even take the fun out of a good armageddon!

Not really, because not everything the Government spends money on goes up at the rate of inflation. Bitumen, for example, has increased much faster than inflation (30% in 6?

Not to mention the potentially terminal disruption to the McMansion & Hummer set. Cheap petrol is the?

I mean, sure, the?

Seems like an issue of personal vs social benefit?

don't tempt him to build another road

I fear you are spot on. This fits well with the ideology of rewarding the already successful?

You say I am mysterious
Let me explain myself
In a land of oranges
I am faithful to apples

Elsa Gidlow

?Us and them? in society is not healthy no matter what way you want to polish it, it still stinks.This feels like we are going backward x 100 years. Geez ,what if you are bright? What if you are black? where will it end? :(?

America tried to solve the problem with?

Exactly.... and when I heard this I could hardly believe it. I thought all the (self-serving) rhetoric around `national standards' was?

It was as you say presented that way. And not fisked with any force.

And we're hearing the "why should we pay twice" line trotted out again by the wealthy who want your taxes to help send Jemima and Jeremy to an elite school of their choice.

Certainly not what I was getting at. Seems more likely it may be better for the others academically. Socially, I'd like to see some research about the effects on either group.

when it's outstanding academics/intellectual curiosity/whatever?

Our government didn't do anything like their stimulus programmes, not even those top-skewed personal tax cuts or the bailout of South Canterbury Finance. Building highways benefits very few, and increasingly that's?

Seriously angus, how is a stimulus like a gamble? Where is the risk? As far as I can tell you don't actually understand how counter cyclic spending works.

Is there a PM faclity here? I can't see it! Don't want a scholarship, just wanted to extend my reply with things I'd rather not post publically under my own name.

The core problem I see with the argument is that you seem to only be open to one possible form of stimulus – tax cuts and pork.

You're using the failure of a specific stimulus program to say that?

A stimulus package according to economists (and so eloquently expressed by yourself) does stimulate, which is a great and simple piece of wisdom with which I do tend to agree. If this were an economics blog?

The risk is in the tax-cuts, pork and feather-bedding for party political interests transforming it into an anchor. The risk is in?

Sod that, make it a fixed multiple of the dole. I'd even say link it to the gap between the poverty?

Well it did write one on fiscal caps this morning: Saturday (`Government cannnot be reduced to a formula' – can't find it on the online edition). At least it wasn't a simple echo of the Herald's. In spite?

That's been tested and proven to be illegal for quite a few years now. Only lack of ability to do the job can force you out of your job now I believe.

It seems to me that the only?