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With the Budget everyone loves rushing out and giving their predictions on its quality, impact etc.
This year I've chosen to sit back and think about it some more rather issue a score straight away. One of the reasons is that often the first interpretations of Budgets are wrong and get changed as time goes on.
What has been an absolute surprise is how negative the reaction has been from the press (who apparently are all left-leaning, Labour lovers). It seems somewhere along the line (around about Labour "deep, dark secret" president Mike Williams) expectations were built up that this budget would have some meaty tax cuts. If that was so it would have been the killer punch for National.
But alas the tax cuts were pretty small - just think of those Freedom Air ads.
What's been missed is that this budget presented some pretty significant changes in policy including actually giving money to Kiwis to help them save. This is a major change from the norm which is handing out money to the less-well off.
Likewise, as Colin James pointed out yesterday, United Future's win in getting tax bracket thresholds changed is a significant change and future governments would be foolish to unwind them.
As for the winners in this budget it is without a doubt the financial services industry. Kiwi Saver is a good first step, more money is going into financial education and getting tax neutrality for managed funds is like winning Lotto. It's odd then that champagne corks haven't been popping.
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While budgeting for financial education, including the basics of economics, is no doubt useful in connection with the Kiwi Saver scheme, it is regrettable that the latter does not reach the whole population. To get the whole population involved in "the apprenticeship" of practical wealth creation and ownership realities, the "ownership society drive" would become more effective through the simple action of allocating the NZ Super Fund to personal accounts. Who can deny that? Jens.