Cactus Kate on the CGT

Last week right wing elitist Cathy Odgers blogged under her pseudonym Catcus Kate about Labour's CGT policy. Obviously she's not in favour of the proposal, and has regurgitated one of her old posts again to try and mount an argument.

She does more to highlight Prebble's hypocrisy than anything else. In fact the only argument she manages to extrude from her bigoted little mind is inconclusive and ultimately incorrect:

National will not repeal CGT if Labour and the Greens get in to office and introduce it. There are no second chances to stop CGT and other silly taxes but to kill them off before they take their first breath, Odgers wrote.

Odgers is clearly being disingenuous as any tax can be changed or removed. What people need to realise is that National after only one term in government have managed to dig the country into a $16.7 billion dollar deficit hole. Some of this debt was unforeseen while some of it was intentional to try and justify National's cuts and proposed asset sales.

There's a huge difference between a CGT and Privatisation of our SOE's to pay for the debt crisis National has predominantly created. A lot of this difference has been covered already, however nobody has mentioned that it's a lot easier to change the tax system than to buy back our privatized SOE's.

Despite John Key's claims that a CGT is a "dagger through the heart of growth," it's very likely that under National, there will be a CGT introduced that includes the family home after the cash injection from privatization runs out. After all, John Key believes that a CGT will not work if the family home is excluded. The problem is that under National, we'll lose our assets as well.

With Labour, Greens and Mana there will be a CGT that does not include the family home and we'll keep our assets for the long term goal of retaining a substantial revenue stream. It's a robust plan that will build an escape ladder, while National's plan just digs the deficit hole even deeper with more serious consequences in the future.

As per usual of right wing proponents, Odgers is contradicting what other members of Act and even the leader of her party believes. When Don Brash was the Reserve Bank Governor, he spoke about the tax advantages of property investment:

"It is not at all clear to me why, given an already-strong tendency for New Zealanders to invest in property, we should give special tax advantages to that form of investment. I think you will find most economists feel uneasy about the fact that someone who works for wages can pay tax at 33 percent...and someone who makes a capital gain pays no tax on that. It does on the face of it seem unfair. The difficulty is, that actually designing a capital gains tax which doesn't create more distortions than it removes is not easy. I am certainly open to thinking about it, yes." he said.

Despite this, Odgers has come out swinging against a CGT saying that she hates all tax. She's even attributed politicians who introduce new taxes as comparatively addicted to alcohol.

Although her form of gutter politics is sometimes amusing, it fails to highlight the underlying issue; something needs to be done to rescue New Zealand from National's deficit hole.

Odgers makes a good showing at appearing to be against tax, but her true motivation is in a disproportionate tax system that rewards the already wealthy at the expense of the poor. Act dislikes the CGT because it removes a tax haven where many rich people have squandered their money to the detriment of society. Here is a clue concerning her belief in that disproportionate tax system:

National failed at capturing hearts and minds in their recent GST hike because their tax cuts were not large enough. Everyone saw it as an opportune time to hike prices, some more than the GST effect.

Odgers believes people did not accept National's increase in GST because the tax cuts for the wealthy were not extensive enough. Although her statement concerning price rises over and above the GST increase is touching, it is false sentiment and ultimately contrite.

You might remember Odgers for some of the hate speech she promotes and is unashamedly non apologetic for. Here she writes about her financial policy concerning the poor of New Zealand:

The heaving pathetic underclass do not seem to have any idea how to look after and better themselves let alone their kids. All the Whanau Ora in the world given to them from the collective troughing of the "consultant" middle class neo-minted Maori brorocracy won't help them. Laws has already suggested a lump sum of $10k for sterilisation to much horrow and howling from those with no better answer, so how about another way? How about we cut off the DPB and dole altogether and PAY the underclasses NOT to breed.

Cathy Odgers is clearly not Minister of Parliament material.