Wednesday, March 30, 2011



A question for Bill English

Yesterday Bill English announced another assault on public services, saying that the revenue hole he'd driven the government into meant that it had to make cutbacks:

"This is not a time we can afford to indulge in a whole lot of 'nice-to-haves', even though for sections of the population, they feel the loss of those services or funding streams.

"The alternative is that 'nice-to-haves' come at the expense of necessities and at the expense of fairness to people with more need."

So, a question: are tax cuts for the rich - which BTW English and all his Cabinet mates benefit from - a necessity, or a "nice to have" (for some) benefiting a small segment of the population "at the expense of fairness to people with more need"?