Party pill regulation continues

Having succeeded swimmingly in not reducing harm by banning BZP, the Dominion Post reports that the Health Ministry is now proposing a different approach to other party pills. Age restrictions, labelling requirements and licences to sell them (all stuff to make a bureaucrat wet himself). Now while I'd agree with an age restriction, labelling requirements seems over the top and having licences to sell something isn't proven to do much other than put up the price and start creating a black market - BUT my big question is this. Why hasn't BZP simply been treated the same way? Why not legalise BZP, put an age restriction on it and regulate it?

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If ACC was abolished, then those who sell such products would face the risk of damaging lawsuits for causing personal injury by accident - in other words, just like most countries in the Western world. Whilst the ACC folly continues, the arguments for some regulation of substances remain.

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However, my question remains - if party pills are to be controlled like alcohol, why not make extend this to BZP, and remove the ban?

Is ACT prepared to support a Labour government?

From ACT's website:

"Rodney Hide: Does the Minister feel so strongly against giving parents a choice of school, including independent schools, that he would resign as Minister of Education if that were a condition of support from MMP parties for a future Government?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: I think the likelihood of Labour going into coalition with ACT is nil, especially with the addition of Roger Douglas to its party list."

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According to this, Rodney Hide is teasing Labour into considering whether it engages in, at least, a confidence and supply agreement with ACT if it needed to do so to remain in power after the 2008 election. Tactically of course, given National's unwillingness to consider Sir Roger Douglas for Cabinet, this might make a little sense for ACT, so that there is some leverage over the Nats after the election. However, if you voted National in 2005 and now are contemplating ACT, because the Nats are a shoo in, Rodney Hide seems safe in Epsom and you want a CHANGE in government to implement more free market policies, you might hesitate if Rodney Hide actually keeps Helen Clark in power.

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Now if you think this is unlikely, consider this. It has seemed both in 2002 and 2005 that Labour's natural partner would be the Greens, but it has avoided confidence and supply and coalition agreements with it after both elections. The Greens were hardly going to support National were they? By contrast, did the average Labour voter expect United Future to keep the government in power for two terms and NZ First for one? Is it inconceivable that a Phil Goff lead Labour Party (let's say Clark is rolled before the election, highly unlikely unless Labour's polling drops below 30%) would seek confidence and supply from ACT, if Labour did implement some modest tax cuts and uh.. did something else? (help me here). After all, it is far from inconceivable that National will partner up with the Maori Party, and the feelers have been out between the Nats and the Greens (although that does seem like hard work).

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So what would be ACT's bottom line for a confidence and supply agreement with Labour OR National? Not the details, it's clear that would be worked through. However, I'd hope it included the following:

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- A tax free income threshold, abolition of the 39% top tax rate and lowering of company tax;

- Education vouchers for primary and secondary education;

- Including private property rights in the RMA if not replacing it;

- End to the growth of the state sector and identification of opportunities to privatise by sale AND issuing shares directly to the public.

As Hillary has her last stand

It is worth reminding you all the eloquent words of Christopher Hitchens on Hillary Rodham Clinton. My favourite snippets are below:

"For Sen. Clinton, something is true if it validates the myth of her striving and her "greatness" (her overweening ambition in other words) and only ceases to be true when it no longer serves that limitless purpose. And we are all supposed to applaud the skill and the bare-faced bravado with which this is done."
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"It's often said, by people trying to show how grown-up and unshocked they are, that all (Bill) Clinton did to get himself impeached was lie about sex. That's not really true. What he actually lied about, in the perjury that also got him disbarred, was the women. And what this involved was a steady campaign of defamation, backed up by private dicks (you should excuse the expression) and salaried government employees, against women who I believe were telling the truth. In my opinion, Gennifer Flowers was telling the truth; so was Monica Lewinsky, and so was Kathleen Willey, and so, lest we forget, was Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who says she was raped by Bill Clinton...Yet one constantly reads that both Clintons, including the female who helped intensify the slanders against her mistreated sisters, are excellent on women's "issues.""

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"During the Senate debate on the intervention in Iraq, Sen. Clinton made considerable use of her background and "experience" to argue that, yes, Saddam Hussein was indeed a threat.... What does matter is that she has since altered her position and attempted, with her husband's help, to make people forget that she ever held it. And this, on a grave matter of national honor and security, merely to influence her short-term standing in the Iowa caucuses. Surely that on its own should be sufficient to disqualify her from consideration? Indifferent to truth, willing to use police-state tactics and vulgar libels against inconvenient witnesses, hopeless on health care, and flippant and fast and loose with national security: The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut. Of course, against all these considerations you might prefer the newly fashionable and more media-weighty notion that if you don't show her enough appreciation, and after all she's done for us, she may cry."

It's time to bury the attempted Clinton dynasty once and for all.

ACT's great chance

- Low flat tax;
- Choose private, integrated or state schools and funding follows every child;
- Have a health insurance account you choose to get the care you need;
- Choose the accident and sickness cover you want based on your risk;
- Pay for your own retirement nest egg that can be inherited without the state.

No it's not a libertarian agenda, but it should be ACT's. An agenda to reflect its name, the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers. An agenda that means school funding follows parents' decisions, that means what you pay for healthcare reflects your risk and waiting lists are traded for hospitals dealing with customers who expect service. Moving the no fault flat rate ACC model to one where people with low risk pay less premiums than those that are high risk, and finally making retirement a personal responsibility. Big tax cuts so people can pay for health and sickness insurance that reflects their risk, responsibility and what they want.

It would be a point of difference from National, but will it happen?

Following on from the Libertarianz annual conference in the weekend, some of the usual inter-necine mumblings between ACT and Libertarianz have reminded me of what we should all be arguing about - quite simply this election is the best opportunity in recent history to present freedom at the ballot box since the 1980s.

Why?

The 1990s National government once had a strong appetite for economic freedom, and was still privatising and deregulating even up to 1999 (ACC and Postal services being the last example), although it had virtually no appetite for personal freedom. ACT and Libertarianz both grew in 1996 and 1999 because of increased frustration at the limp wristed attitude to freedom of National After National lost in 1999, it struggled to regain power against Labour (which of course has no interest in shrinking the state). In 2002 National offered next to nothing and ACT had its best ever result.

However, the last election was difficult for both ACT and the Libertarianz. National in 2005 offered a semi-libertarian leader and a platform to cut taxes, privatise and abolish race based privilege by the state. Supporters of ACT and the Libertarianz voted National as they saw the chance, which appeared distant only a year before, that Labour could be defeated. Funnily enough having nearly won an election on principle, National has run a mile from it.

Labour is finished. National can almost sleepwalk to victory, and as it does so it has moved to the centre. National is Labour lite, and no one who wants a smaller state and more freedom can see a vote for National being good for anything other than replacing Helen Clark with John Key (maybe worthy but not much more than that).

So this is where ACT can come in.

Sir Roger Douglas in his widely reported ACT conference address advocated a positive agenda that is NOT all ACT Policy, including shifting healthcare to an insurance based model, education vouchers, make the first $20,000 tax free, drop the 39% tax rate, implicitly opening ACC fully up to private competition including personal accident and sickness insurance (replacing sickness benefit perhaps). Positive stuff. Frankly, with Sir Roger Douglas ACT has a chance to have a presence and to debate head on, ON PRINCIPLE, with Key and Clark. After all, Clark was in Cabinet with him.

ACT could advocate zero income tax like Sir Roger did in his book Unfinished Business, or flat tax like it did in the late 1990s. However, regardless of detail it can outline a vision of less government and substantial more choice for education, health (and ACC and sickness insurance which are ignored but directly related) and retirement. Kiwisaver for example could be shifted into private accounts that could replace National Superannuation in due course.

This agenda could inspire people to think "wow I could send my kids to private school without paying twice" or "i can live a healthy lifestyle and pay less for healthcare AND have my own insurance account to ensure I get cover when I need it". At one time Sir Roger Douglas believed 50% of voters would go for this, then he reduced his ambition to 30%. Surely 10% would be attracted by this prospect of serious reform of education, healthcare, ACC, the welfare state and cutting taxes. Especially with the credibility of Sir Roger Douglas on the ballot.

Whilst National limps to power, ACT could inspire those who want serious change to vote for it as a viable coalition partner, instead of the morally bankrupt Maori and NZ First Parties.

If not now, then when?

Oh and Libertarianz? Don't worry, there is still room there. I don't expect ACT to advocate privatising schools and hospitals, ending the welfare state, abolishing the RMA, reforming drug laws, abolishing laws on blasphemy and the rest. No. ACT is not the libertarian party. Libertarianz is a bigger package, a complete one to shrink the state on principle to its core functions. Personal liberty has never been much on the ACT agenda, although to be fair in the last three years ACT has been far better on this front than it ever was before.

ACT DOES have Sir Roger Douglas who has more political courage than virtually anyone in National, and it has Rodney Hide who, on a good day, can be quite inspiring. If you can't ride a wave of anti-Labour sentiment to grow, become a critical fixture for National and pull National towards some serious reform then you should give up. Don't be limp wristed, be bold, be like the Greens, be advocates for consumer choice, taxpayer rights and private enterprise. Attack the inability of state health and education monopolies to deal with people's needs, demand that government shrink and taxes shrink with it.

It is, after all, what you exist to advocate. After all, do you think a National Party Cabinet would be better or worse off with Sir Roger Douglas and Rodney Hide on it? How likely is it if nobody really knows what ACT is offering?

A lousy tax cut idea

Idiot Savant at No Right Turn talks of speculation in the Sunday Star Times that Cullen's tax cut might be a "social dividend" flat payout of $1000 per "low income earner" (otherwise known as the Labour core).

He describes this as "a good idea, and certainly far better than anything offered by the "tax cuts for the rich" brigade. It targets support at the needy rather than the greedy,"

Now I'm not one to look a tax cut in the mouth, but he's seriously wrong. He isn't advocating a tax cut after all. A tax cut, you see, means your net income increases as the government takes less of what you earn. You get a steady amount each fortnight or month, can afford to save it, spend it, or do as you wish. It is permanent, sustainable and reduces the size of the state (which I acknowledge isn't important to him, as he sees it as the best way to deliver health, education and social insurance monopolies).

What will happen if people on low incomes get $1000 one off? Well, there will be a lot more big TVs being sold, some fashion trips, a few more new car stereos, some trips to Australia and the rest. In other words, it will be used to buy consumer goods. Now that, in itself, isn't a bad thing, except that this dividend wouldn't be paid to everyone, especially the majority who pay 90% of income tax. Don't forget those on the top tax rates pay the vast majority of income tax, but to argue they don't deserve a dividend is grossly unfair.
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No, Idiot Savant wants you to keep working 2 days a week for the beloved Nanny State and be grateful that with every extra dollar you earn, you only get to keep 61c of it, even before you give up a 12.5% surcharge of what you buy to the state, be damned grateful we let you keep that you rich thieving bastard (the undertone being "you don't fucking deserve what you earn, just wish the revolution would come one day and you'll get yours you bourgeoisie scum").
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Far more generous is the Libertarianz policy announced in the weekend of immediately creating a tax free threshold of $10,000 for everyone, which would mean those lowest earners (and students, children and others earning a bit here and there) would be free of income tax, but would also be a boost to all other income earners.

You see cutting taxes does not "disproportionately" benefit the rich, given it was their money in the first place. That is the fundamental difference between statists and libertarians. Statists think taxes are "society's money" or "government money" and getting a tax cut is "taking it from society". Libertarians believe it is your money that the government has taken, and a tax cut is giving you back your own money. No pure tax cut can be disproportionate by definition.

Of course he goes on to advocate a universal basic income, a concept some libertarians advocate as a transitional step to replacing the welfare state, using Milton Friedman's negative income tax concept with a flat tax. That idea, as a transitional measure, has some merit for debate. However he sees it as basically freeing people from work "It would substantially improve the actual, substantive freedom of people to lead their lives how they wish". Well for people who want to not work. You know those useful productive dynamic people who want to live off of the back of everyone else until they decide not to, while we all pay for them. Of course it would reduce the freedom of people for the rest of us having to pay for everyone else.

So there you have it - the left want people to get an income for doing absolutely nothing - their birthright to have everyone else pay for them to live, and not just survive but to be not uncomfortable. They want everyone else to pay for it, because - well they believe once you get above average you owe it to pay for those below - and not only that, if you ask for a tax cut when you are "rich" (above average income) you're selfish and evil.

It's quite despicable.