alt.politics.economics

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:56:17 -0800 (PST), antsbull@
wrote:

>> And, in case you would like to know, I got my numbers direct from
>> Treasury.
>>
>> Where did you get yours from?
>> --
>
>Colin Espiner.
>
>"Pouring money into the core state sector would have been a bad move,
>given that as the Sallies had pointed out, Labour was already spending
>an additional $16b on welfare every year since it came to office, and
>not much had changed."
>
>/
>
>Did he make them up then?

He is wrong, and so are the Sallies.

I pick that somebody has misread a Treasury table, perhaps:
/budget/2006/pdfs/

If you look at the top line of numbers what you see is the yearly
expenditure for Social Security and Welfare for each year from
2001 to 2010 (some of which are forecasts), but each year stands
on its own ie it isn't additional to the year before, it's just
the running expenses for that year for that activity. You might
think that it's far too much but that's a different issue (ask
your grandmother about it, because it includes her pension).
Espiner would have been closer to the truth if he had omitted the
word "additional" ie Social Security and Welfare cost about $16
billion last year. EOS.

So having got to here; What do *you* think Espiner actually
meant?
--

Brian Dooley

Wellington New Zealand