Tax cuts for top earners good for economy - Key

Why should we pay the rich more, You mean why should hard workers pay less tax, The greed of owning a house for your family when you should be living in a state owned house, working hard to buy something you realy want or moaning because the goverment doesent give you enough money to buy what you realy want.

That's good sam I think the story goes that Prince john (Key) was the one who raises taxes to secure his position and the Sheriff or Sir Hiss (Disney story) (english) is his sidekick to help collect these taxes and secure order. A bit of useless information is that Prince John was based on the real life King or John of England who was labeled "Bad King John" as he was the most disastrous King in history and lost his popularity after taxing.

Why should we have to pay top earners more to stay in New Zealand. Let them go so that the younger generation can take their place and work their way to the top.
As for the call centre's moving to the Phillipines.If you get a phone call from someone with a foreign accent that you don't understand, just tell them that you do not understand them and hang up. If enough people do that enough times, we may get the call centre's back.

@Alex: Very well put. Now this is a common man with brains.

@Robert: That is all Bull. If the govt. wanted to improve the lot of the masses this economy would see such a resurgence economically but they stand to make no money out of that hence we get screwed over.

@Historian - it is a new world, new society. Rogernomics was necessary to break NZ out of the problems we were in. Similarly we need to re-adjust after 9 years of Labour. @bita - how much is enough? Is 38% ok, but 33% the end of the world to fairness? Remember that people always pay more for every dollar earned. I think the proposal is a fair adjustment. Social Responsibility does not HAVE to come through the government and the political process - if we all help and contribute to our own communities and stop worrying how much is to be handed down things will work better.

Jim. The reason why they moved their call centre is so they can pay their workers less, not because they are struggling. It's about greed. It goes to show this tax package won't work.

Something I will never, ever, ever understand is people who defend the rich when they themselves are not rich. The rich are not people who have "worked hard to get ahead" - the implication being that they deserve their wealth. This assumption that they deserve it (thus making it morally wrong to tax them at a higher rate) is the core of the argument for most people who have commented here. That is fundamentally wrong - you need to justify, somehow, that one person can be 100x, 1,000x, or 10,000x more deserving than another person. It's just so ridiculous no one can argue it. Now because it appears so ridiculous, you need to ask - "How do rich people actually get rich?" Some of them start companies and work on building them - that is true, but bear in mind the ridiculous scale of their wealth and whether they deserve it. Chances are they had advantages a poor person didn't have - financial security as a child, food on the table, good school etc that poor people don't have. Of course the argument against that is "well poor people should just work harder" - but why should they have to struggle against disadvantages they have merely because they were born into a situation with those disadvantages? Why should one person have to work for what others get for free by virtue of their birth?

For nearly fifty years New Zealand had a system of progressive taxation that worked. At the time New Zealand was in the top ten countries of the world for our standard of living and social equality. We had low crime and few people were homeless. There were no hospital waiting lists and people were able to save for their retirement.

'brent' the 'poor' can get ahead in life - we have some choices in this U know - work hard or complain which is what U seem to be doing and making excuses to be 'poor'. To work hard and get ahead in life make U a 'noob' ? U seem to have chips on both shoulders.

the poor might as well top them selfs now before long we will out on the streets very soon why are they looking after these nobs and the rest of us live on the bones of our ass thanks john key you really know how to look after the poor,