Ryan Bridge: Cut spending, don't levy

Labour's getting flak, especially in Auckland, for their capital gains tax.

Rightly so.

But National's approach, as is usually the case with centre-right parties, is user-pays.

It's a way to get revenue without appearing to tax-grab your starving constituents.

Yesterday it was whacking a new tax on our power bills in order to make them cheaper - we hope.

Last week they scrapped the full driver licence test but then NZTA came out and said they may need increase fees for the first test and other bits to make up costs.

We'll pay tolls to get the roads we want. We're about to get hit with congestions charging.

International tourists pay the tourists' tax. Domestic tourists pay to use DOC huts and, more recently, carparks at peak places.

Wellington will probably soon get a targeted special rate for pumping their number twos into the Cook Strait.

Now, so long as this stuff is ring-fenced, I prefer things are charged this way because if you don't want to use a toll road, use a taxed one.

User pays make more sense and is fairer to those who use, and more importantly, those who don't use a particular good or service.

But at some point, your household budget is hit with so many fees and charges that you have to stop and ask how long it can continue.

It's death by a thousand cuts.

And then you ask, can't the government cut wasteful spending elsewhere to cover some of this stuff or give me some back in tax?

In case you needed examples of that, this week, Shane Jones' half-billion slush funds would be a good place to start, I would've thought.

Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.