Letter to the Editor: Kiwi style or American style?

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FROM:       "f.macskasy" 
SUBJECT:     Letters to the editor
DATE:        Wed, 14 May 2014 23:59:33 +1200
TO:         "Dominion Post" <letters@dompost.co.nz> 

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The Editor
Dominion Post

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I am dumbfound. Absolutely gobsmacked.

With New Zealand's sovereign debt now around $60 billion (as
at November 2013) and having increased by $27 million a day
since National took office - John Key is kite-flying with
suggestions of further tax cuts?!

Is this how National exercises fiscal responsibility -
bribing voters with yet more unaffordable tax cuts?

Previous tax cuts in 2009 and 2010 were paid for with assets
sales; taxing children on their paper rounds; increasing
prescription charges; as well as unsuccessful  attempts to
tax carparks and cellphones. Currently, National is planning
to sell off 5,000 State houses that were once homes to
low-income families.

Instead of tax cuts, New Zealanders might care to tell the
Prime Minister that we should be funding education so that
parents don't have to fork out  $357 million a year in
so-called "voluntary donations" and spend long hours 
fundraising to pay for  supposedly "free" schooling.

It is patently simple. We can have free education and public
healthcare. Or we can have tax-cuts. But we cannot have
both. 

This is the moment we decide whether we want public services
for all New Zealanders, regardless of their financial
circumstances - or an American-style user-pays.

I hope we choose wisely.


-Frank Macskasy
[address & phone number supplied]

 

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References

NZ Herald:  Parents fundraise $357m for ‘free’ schooling

Fairfax media: Public debt climbs by $27m a day

Radio NZ: PM John Key dangles tax cut carrot

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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes

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= fs =