Would You Kill Your Mother to Pay Michael
Cullen?
Libz Glorious Five-Year Plan
The secret to balancing the budget
is to remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody's
head. Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don't pay your taxes you'll
be fined. If you don't pay the fine you'll be jailed. If you try to escape from
jail, you'll be shot. Thus, I - in my role as citizen and voter - am going to
shoot you - in your role as taxpayer and ripe suck - if you don't pay your
share of the national tab. Therefore, every time the govt spends money on
anything, you have to ask myself, ‘Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother
for this?’
PJ O'Rourke, from the chapter Would You Kill Your Mother to Pave I-95, in Parliament of Whores.
By the time this issue comes out, Michael Cullen's plans for one more
year of theft (i.e., the 2001/02 budget -
Ed.) will have just been released. One thing that can be predicted with certainty
is that the amount of government theft will be up, and Government will be
bigger than ever before. Local and central government currently consumes 40% of
New Zealanders' production - the body politic is a body-snatcher. An average
income earner works well over one-third of his life to support the people who
hold the gun against his family's head. If John Taxpayer worked a forty hour
week, he'd be working for the grey ones all day Monday and Tuesday, and they'd
still be looking over his shoulder the rest of the week. Is this really what we
want?
We don't! We want to see how quickly we could reduce government so John
is only working for government until Monday morning smoko -- and that only
voluntarily. Libertarianz’ Finance Spokesman, Tim Sturm, has figured out it
will take just 5 years to get there, and he has the figures to prove it. The
budget shows that it is possible to get to a libertarian society peacefully and
happily in a short period of time, one in which people's property is secure, and
their wallets are no longer plundered by govt.
If this budget was enacted on
There's a Sea Change in them there
hills (and a mixed metaphor checker in the parlour)
The Libertarianz alternative budget assumes a cultural and philosophical
sea change has already occurred. We've got a majority in the House -- or, at
the very least, our ideas have achieved a majority in the House -- and there's
been a revolution in people's minds. People have rejected the endemic moral
cannibalism of our current system of plundering Peter to pay for Paul; they
have rejected the legalised plunder of coercive govt; they have begun to assume
responsibility for their own lives, and they have come to grips with the hard
truth that to remove large coercive government permanently they must, eventually,
have to pay for small non-coercive government voluntarily.
This budget, it is hoped, is a signpost that will help to make that
revolution possible -- to show how quickly a non-coercive libertarian society
can be achieved while avoiding blood in the streets; upholding valid existing
debt contracts; and making provision (from government asset sales) for those
who are currently dependent on the state, and are no longer in a position to do
much about it.
These last two hurdles are the highest. Her Majesty's NZ Government has
a big debt -- bigger than Hitler's gas bill -- about a third of GDP - a debt
that responsible government would never have allowed themselves to incur. But
libertarian governments upholds contracts, so we'll endeavour to pay this off
ASAP, while repudiating just a little of it -- we won't, for instance, be
contributing to bloody Bill Birch's retirement, since most of it is his bloody
debt.
The last high hurdle before the finish line is the thousands who have
been stolen from to such an extent that they are now bereft, who believed the
promises of previous government and so are now unable to make provision for themselves. If we trip at this hurdle we won't finish the
race, we'll be disqualified. We've chosen to allow for these unfortunates
through a one-off, transitional measure by selling the government's 'assets,'
and providing each with a secure, protected annuity from the proceeds of this
sale. They'll no longer visit WINZ or the Super office every fortnight, and no
longer will they need to picket parliament every three years.
Stand back!
Let's get some starting assumptions out of the way first. As we're
scrapping the Reserve Bank Act, we've assumed 0% inflation as history has shown
is a reasonable under a system of free banking,. We’ll
be removing the regulatory burden from the economy. Out with RMA,
How much loose change have we got?
We keep hearing from Greypower that they paid for the govt's assets. Fine. Have them back with our compliments -- these aren't assets,
they're a millstone. Te Papa cost $300 million to build; who wants to pay that
now? Taxpayers' money has been poured down a hole for so long that there's
barely any value left, but what there is we're either selling and returning the
proceeds to existing pensioners as secure annuities, or distributing to them in
the form of shares which they are then free to keep, sell, or otherwise dispose
of. If they want to ‘sell their family silver they can’ – there’ll be plenty of
willing buyers – and if they want to keep it they can do that too. And no need
for Winston Peters to travel the country flirting with old ladies either.
The government has valued its assets at $74.6 billion. Now, we would
certainly value these things differently than the Government Valuer -- we would
for instance value
Just give me the last sentence
Now, as you'd expect with financial statements, there's a truckload of
maths to get to the last sentence. Just to show we took that truck for a spin
we've put all the maths on our website (See the 2005 Libz budget here http://www.libertarianz.org.nz/) so
suit-wearing accountancy types can pore through our figures and realise just
how close we've come to a Nobel Prize for economics.
But here's some highlights:
·
The current government puts a gun to your head in the
order of $120 per person per week - that's $480 per week for a family of four -
more than this Libz budget over the
interim period. That means you'll have this much more in your pocket each week
to spend on things the government is currently doing on your behalf; things
like brain-washing your kids, giving to needy strangers, and building national
museums that now aren't worth very much.
·
The country’s defence forces are massively under-budgeted
and in dire need of huge investments and the level of economic growth in New
Freeland and its politiccs of freedom will make it a prime target for envious
socialist states. An initial investment of $18bn has been assessed as minimal
for the country to bild a credible defence force.
·
Excluding debt and the initial defence spend-up, total
government expenditure will be 4% of GDP.
·
All taxes are gone -- bye, bye GST, FBT, ACC, PAYE --
and piss off petrol, alcohol, tobacco taxes - except income and company taxes for
the immediate future. But these have been slashed to just 14%, and instead of PAYE, you'll get one bill per
quarter from DOLT (Department of Legalised Theft -- the renamed IRD) which we
expect to become a voluntary payment just as soon as Bill Birch's credit card
bill is repaid, and Nzers realise the government isn't doing them over anymore.
·
During this transitional period the first $10,000 of income is tax free. T
·
he enormous debt, which is what most
income tax payments are repaying, will be repaid by the fifth year. Asset sales
and the creation of annuities to remove liabilities are smoothed over the first
three years to ensure that sufficient funds to reduce the debt principal in
each year. As the debt obligations are removed, the necessary investment in
adequate defence forces will be increased and completed in the same year as the
debt is paid off, 2006. After this time all taxes will be voluntary.
·
All victimless crimes will be abolished, which means
that police will spend less time snooping on private communications and raiding
marijuana patches and will be available to hunt down burglars and murderers
instead. Concentration on what police should be doing means we've doubled the
police budget.
·
By year three we'll be talking to insurance companies
to help voluntarily fund the police --they should be interested, since life and
property protection will save them a fortune -- and to people registering
contracts, title deeds and so forth -- who will want to ensure that they pay
enough to have law courts and a legal system sufficient to protect an uphold
their contracts and their property.
·
Tax-paid social welfare, that vestigial remnant of
moral cannibalism, has been outlawed, and families can give their $480 per week
to the Sallies or the family next door if they want to. But since solo parents
can't leave the rugrats at home while heading off to the factory, we've
earmarked secure annuities -- from state asset sales -- for existing DPB-takers
until their ankle-biters reach the third birthday.
Conclusion