Posts by Terence W
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AS,
Thanks for your comments.
Education outcomes are improving, albeit too slowly. Do you have any suggestions about how we might speed this up and not spend more money in the area?
With regards to health - I agree entirely about the need to pay doctors and nurses more. As for the black hole question - unfortunately, I fear the answer is an awful lot. As far as OECD countries go we're a low spender on health. To get a really good system like the French have we'll need to spend a lot, lot more (particularly given aging popn and new drug costs).
As for taxing the wealthy until they hurt, I'm not suggesting punitive taxation, but maybe 44% say on income over $150,000. The wealthy cope with this burden in Australia ok. Also, there aren't a finite number of skilled people in the NZ workforce, new people enter the Labour market all the time and others up-skill, and only a small minority of them leave.
The point is that no-one in the top tax brackets objected to paying more in 99, because they actually thought it would address the problems facing NZ. It doesn't appear to have.
But people (BRT etc) did complain, right from the start. And the extra money has helped as I showed above. The trouble as I see it is that so much of our public discourse is dominated by media driven talk about tax cuts and very little about how spending might actually help.
Remember decrepit social infrastructure will send people overseas as likely as tax rates will.
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AS,
It's a pity that people feel that way. The underclass hasn't increased in proportion to our population, nor have they got worse off in an absolute sense.
Teachers are paid more, as are doctors and nurses (seeing as we're talking about the brain drain). Primary health care fees have dropped significantly too. Most of our hospitals are recovering to some degree from a long period of under investment.
And the sad fact of the matter is that, with an aging population and rising health costs in general, you need to spend more to stay in the same place.
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Happy travels Danyl,
If you can't accurately read what other people have written, or correctly represent it in your own posts then I'm inclined to agree: future discussions on this topic will be fruitless.
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The total number of permanent departures - 80,000 - is the highest since records began.
Yes but our population has grown too. As a proportion of our total population the figure is no greater than it was in previous decades.
Out of interest, do any of your statistics suggest that it is higher income and qualified New Zealanders (top tax bracket folks) driving these numbers or the unskilled and new entrants to the work force?
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55% so now about half, rather than 2/3ds, and this is only for income tax (not GST), but thanks for the partial correction.
The table is interesting too - it suggests that if we were to emulate Australia and add a new top tax band at $150,000 we could generate considerable extra tax revenue.
Labour mobility in health is certainly an issue, but it stems from gross wages as much as net and how are we going to pay these salaries if we don't have tax revenue?
As for the great plumber shortage - can you provide me with any evidence that plumbers are leaving New Zealand at a faster rate than new ones are entering the labour market.
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much warmer country right next door
Speaking as someone who's just spent the last week in Melbourne and Canberra, my advice on this one is - if you do leave - don't believe the hype. And do pack some woolens. It was freezing, colder than Wellington even...
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Since we're already experiencing the problems I describe this flies in the face of simple common sense.
With the exception of health, where the issue is real, our problems with brain drain aren't that huge. What's more they are no bigger than they were in the late 80s and early 90s when our tax system was less progressive than it is now and considerably less progressive than Australia's at the time.
...that pays almost all the bills...
Last I looked people in the top tax bracket only paid about 1/3 of total tax, but - even if they all left - their jobs would remain. People would fill them and tax the tax take would remain constant. It's for this reason that Sweden can suffer emigration and yet still have a very nice social democratic economy.
If my wife and I move to Australia then our after-tax incomes increase by roughly 80% overnight, due to wage and tax disparities. [Emphasis mine]
Also, further to what Daniele and Jackie point out, people choose to live where they do for a variety of reasons, a big one being that they like to live in a safe, clean, supportive society with a social safety net. If you want this you need to pay for it, which you can either do through progressive taxation or by slugging those who can't afford it. Despite our current - small and sensible, in terms of fiscal policy, surpluses - in coming years, as our population ages, and medical costs rise for a variety of reasons, we're going to need to spend more to preserve whats left of this system. Who do you suggest pays for it?
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The top 20% of taxpayers account for approximately 60% of income tax revenue and the reality is that New Zealand is competing with other countries - especially Australia - for those workers. If the counter-revolution involves additional wealth distribution - and I've no doubt it does - then instead of getting more money from the evil rich the states revenues will likely decline as high income earners leave the country.
The challenges caused by the globalisation of health labour markets that you refer to later in your post are real enough but I think it unlikely that a modest raise in the top marginal tax rate is likely to lead to the problems you describe. After all, Australia's top tax rate is (or was until recently?) considerably higher than ours and you don't see Australians flocking in this direction do you. Similarly, brain drain is no larger problem for Sweden than it is for the UK.
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Danyl,
I'm open to being corrected if I'm wrong here (memory poor as ever) but WFF is hardly socialism, nor is it taking your money and giving it to someone else. It's a form of earned income tax credit, in which people's own money is returned to them depending on the number of children they have and the income they earn.
To my mind it:
(a) Offers recognition of the cost of raising kids.
and
(b) Displays concern for child welfare.I don't have kids so I don't benefit from it directly but its objectives seem perfectly laudable. It's just a pity that it does very little for the most vulnerable children.
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Um Steve,
Did you actually read the Daily Howler post you linked to???
It is a critique of the errors in the Curtis Wilkie review you quote.
Scraping. The. Bottom. Of. The. Barrel.