This is worthwhile. I wonder if all debates are better in writing?
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/06-10-2026/should-the-government-be-spending-less-a-debate-between-a-neoliberal-and-a-progressive
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The implication is that anything more than 25% is absurd, anywhere, anytime. But to accept this logic requires completely ignoring context.
That was a prescription for *Britain*, not Aotearoa, a society with a much bigger population. At a time when much of their utilities and other resources were still publicly-owned. Trying to use this factule as a benchmark for a heavily corporatised Aotearoa in 2026 is beyond nonsense.
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"In 2019, the year of Jacinda Ardern's Wellbeing Budget, core government spending was 28% of GDP. Seven years on, it is 32.6%, and we are told we have just lived through austerity."
#OliverHartwich, 2026
But where is the lion's share of that money going? Not to any of the things the left is advocating public spending on (infrastructure, public services, etc). All this demonstrates is that GDP isn't a meaningful thing to measure against when assessing spending.
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"Nor do the various forms of privatisation magically create extra money: they just require people to pay via user fees rather than through taxation, and the former will often be less efficient and equitable than collective provision."
#MaxRashbrooke, 2026
@dayvblack
> I wonder if all debates are better in writing?
At least in writing we can skim over all the calculated bad takes. Take this one from paid reputation launderer #OliverHartwich;
"Take John Maynard Keynes, whom the left now treats as its patron saint. He reckoned that taxes of about 25% of national income were as much as post-war Britain could easily bear. Were he alive today, I might offer him a job at The New Zealand Initiative."
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@ClareBear