Thieving scum

 

Twenty-three parasites. (Back pockets not pictured.) [PIC: Dom Post]

Go on, when you read the headline you already had a fair idea about whom this would be.

Yes, readers: politicians.

A person with a smile painted on at the front and a bulging back pocket in behind.

Thieving scum.

A fair proportion of whom are taking your money to stay in their own Wellington home:

DOM POST: Twenty-three MPs are claiming an allowance [sic] of between $34,000 and $52,000 [per annum] to stay in their own Wellington homes, a perk that sees the taxpayer help politicians pay off their mortgages.

Nice. I'm sure to most of these entities that kind of money is the sort of chump change that fills up the back of the couch; but there's many a taxpayer who would that like that kind of money back to pay their own goddamned mortgage. 

Dom Post reports the scum includes "six National Party ministers, the Speaker Gerry Brownlee and deputy speaker Barbara Kuriger [who] claim the capped allowance to [supposedly] cover living costs in the city," poor lambs. "They then use it," says the Dom Post, "to pay rent on property they already own. Seven Labour MPs and two from ACT are also receiving up to $34,000 a year, the maximum paid to backbenchers." 

Yes folks, the entitle-itis is parliament-wide. The Dom Post names the roll call of thieving scum to be these:

ACT

Simon Court

Todd Stephenson

NATIONAL

Mark Mitchell

Melissa Lee

Louise Upston

Stuart Smith

Barbara Kuriger

David MacLeod

Tim Costley

Paul Goldsmith

Judith Collins

Catherine Wedd

Andrew Bayley

Vanessa Weenink

Paul Garcia

Gerry Brownlee

LABOUR

Keiran McAnulty

Willie Jackson

Duncan Webb

Arena Williams

Jan Tinetti

Jenny Salesa

Deborah Russell

As the Post wryly notes, "Many of these MPs have extensive property portfolios."

Some of these parasites have form already, claiming large "expenses" and the accommodation allowance, including ACT's big-spending Todd Stephenson and National's Judith Collins and Louise Upston; and Labour's Willy Jackson, Jan Tinetti, Deborah Russell, Jenny Salesa, Arena Williams and Duncan Webb are all there again, treating the taxpayer as an ATM machine. (This attitude is truly everywhere, isn't it.)

Scum. 

Every.Single.One.Of.Them.

Quote of the Day: On being ‘privileged’

 

“It is common nowadays to refer to anyone with wealth or opportunities as ‘privileged.’ Loving parents don’t pass on opportunities to their children, they bestow privileges. A self-made businessman who rose from rags to riches isn’t a model of achievement— he’s privileged. Using ‘privilege’ in this way means that we don’t distinguish between children who work to make the most of the opportunities their parents give them and entitled brats who expect everything to be handed to them— and it means we don’t distinguish between those who achieve something through productive merit and those who get rich through the use of political power. In an economic context, the concept of ‘privilege’ should be reserved for those who line their pockets by taking advantage of special favours from the government— what is often called ‘cronyism’.
    “Today, the opportunities for growing rich through cronyism are legion … ”
~ Don Watkins & Yaron Brook, from their new book: Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality

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Bill & Roger: Just a couple of overinflated beneficiaries

Beneficiary Bill and “Roger the Taxpayer.”  Two graduates of the entitlement culture running right from the top to the bottom of the New Zealand political tree. Two people with their hands in your pocket – two moochers who saw a racket, and wanted in on it.   Two looters – one of whom as minister of finance increased the total tax take, the other of whom increased the total deficit.  Two bludgers, neither of whom ever saw an “entitlement” they didn’t want part of.

Two of the country’s most highly-paid beneficiaries, with morals to match.

Seems to me that whatever claims to moral authority either of them might have had once, and any such claims must be vanishingly small, their studied and unrepentant fleecing of the taxpayers has now destroyed it.  As Adam at The Inquiring Mind says, “Bill English has committed the cardinal sin of being the resident of a glass house who has commenced to throw stones.  He may not have ‘broken the rules’ but he has undoubtedly diminished his ability to speak with any authority . . . “  Given Douglas’s previous reputation, that goes double for him.

Frankly, except for the occasional party zealot, who are out in force even now insisting neither of these bludgers has done anything wrong, who would ever again take seriously anything either of them has to say on taxing, spending, belt-tightening, economising, responsibility, or honesty.   Who could?