Oliver Twist's Worst Nightmare

   

Budgets and Beggars

In New Zealand, national budgets in the parliamentary Westminster tradition are presented annually to the parliament and the people.  We feel compelled to make this rather basic point because many of the US readers may be confused, since in the United States the Federal Government can stagger on for decades it would seem without a budget stipulating spending and revenue.

Budget times in New Zealand have historically been occasionally dramatic.  When the government ran the economy more tightly than an Eastern European sphincter most folk in the country furtively huddled around the radio on Budget night waiting to see if some dramatic announcement would be forthcoming.  Sometimes instantly, whilst we were all supposed to be sleeping, the currency would be devalued twenty percent by legislative fiat.  Or petrol tax went up forty percent.  Fortunes were made or lost overnight. 

Thankfully Eastern European economics and tyranny were tossed out (at least for a time) early in the nineteen eighties, when the IMF was on the verge of declaring New Zealand bankrupt.
  (There are a few political parties determined to return to a command and control economy, such as the Greens and the Mana Party.  For the moment, most New Zealanders regard them as being on the lunatic fringe--thankfully.)  But we digress.  We are much more sane now.  New Zealand has a free floating currency, an independent Reserve Bank, and a much more transparent mode of government.  Take the budget, for example.  It is now a big yawn--deliberately so.  Recent administrations make a point of drip feeding all the juicy bits weeks before to the media and public so that there will be few, if any, surprises.  All in all, this is a much much better system than we once laboured under. 

But one thing never changes.  All the special interest groups approach national budgets with a deep commitment to MMFM, which is a Maori acronym, but down the pub loosely translates to "More Money For Me".  We have always found this an unseemly sight: hundreds of special interest groups holding begging bowls out to the gummint, pleading for more of other peoples' money.  Always.  We have never, ever seen a special interest group be allocated taxpayers' money in a budget, only to refuse it on the grounds that it was too much, or it was way beyond what they actually require, or they are incompetent to administer such a vast sum.  No matter how much money is beneficently bestowed, it is never enough.  The best you can hear is, "It's a start.  But much, much more is needed." 

We find this entire spectacle unseemly, but it is an inevitable consequence of the welfare state.  This is not to say, incidentally, that the causes advances by such groups are not worthy, nor that they are addressing real social needs.  It is to say that there is something indictable about a society and system that has such interests beg from the government, which in turn extracts cash compulsorily from citizens to meet the demand.  The ethic of thankfulness and gratitude has disappeared like the moa. 

The New Zealand Government and Its Prime Minister

When the state becomes beneficent, private (non-government) charity begins to die on the vine.  The state becomes so bloated, it resembles Jabba the Hutt.  The sub-text is that the gummint begins to intrude itself into so many social and community affairs that we inexorably inch back towards an Eastern European dystopia.  Another sub-text is that communities come to believe themselves both dependant and helpless.  Another sub-text is the fertile stimulation of envy and grievance.

Public media usually present "winners and loser" lists after the presentation of a national budget.    The Civilian presented his own list of beneficiaries.  Sometimes real life eerily resembles the parody.

Politics

What’s in the Budget?

16/05/2013 at 4:36 pm

The Civilian takes a look at what you’ll find in this year’s Budget.

• $1.7 billion to buy back Mighty River Power after Minister for State Owned Enterprises, Tony Ryall began missing it.

• $1 billion to build roads that go around Hamilton instead of through it.

• $200 million for construction of single unaffordable house.

• $125,000 to (Attorney General) Christopher Finlayson’s ongoing investigation into who framed Roger Rabbit.

• $64 for Treasurer Bill English to get his printer fixed.

• $540 million for Tauranga rebuild.

• $57 to buy all MPs name tags so that everyone will know who they are.

• $65,000 to bolster the Government’s strategic reserve of anti-Australian jokes.

• $800 million to Gore, just to see what happens.

• $6 million for an awareness and policing campaign to ensure mixtures only have proper lollies, and not the ones nobody likes, such as black jellybeans and those chalky things.

• $2 million to buy copies of 2013 Budget for impoverished families.

• $5 million to explore what more the Government could be doing with jigsaw puzzles.

• $240,000 to see if we can get Sam Neill in some more Hollywood movies.

• $20,000 to figure out why a McDonald’s deluxe cheeseburger costs less than a regular one.

• $236,000 for more cows in schools.

• $250 million to make the transformers in the national grid look more like the ones in the movie Transformers.

• $900 million to rename the country “A Yellow Submarine” for one day so that we can all sing “We all live in a yellow submarine.”

• $3 billion to get rid of rivers, so they stop flooding and getting all polluted.