It's budget week here in New Zealand.

It was, as you would expect from a Labour budget, full of bribes- most designed to kick in after the next election.

So anyway.... this, along with the title to a Blog Entry by Rodney Hide (What’s in it for me? ) got me thinking....

Ultimately we live in a democracy and as a libertarian with philosophical underpinnings that lean toward objectivisim “What's in it for me?” has an important ring to it. As human being we should, and as a general rule are, driven by self interest. This self interest becomes very important when we think of our democratic process wherein she with the most numbers takes the prize. Hence the incentive for 'progressive' taxation and wealth redistribution. Now I'm opposed to both of these in principle but I'm increasingly becoming resigned to their continued existence. So I've got an idea I've been kicking around for a few days and I'd like to kick it open to the floor for some comments (comment link is below).

Why don't we fight election bribe fire with fire.

The case for lower business taxes and a flat personal tax rate is a pretty tough sell in our political environment. Hell, even the Nats are not committing to bringing the 60k+ tax rate back to 33c. The lower tax rates lead to economic growth theory, though well underpinned by independent research, is hard to convince the general public of. It is a bit of a sorry indictment on the state of our society and our general education, but, people really need to see $$$ now.

So... where is all this waffle going....

I propose that we start an organisation of businesses, independant of any political party, the members of which commit to the following (or some close derivative thereof).

Each business member will commit that, on the implementation of a tax cut to the corporate tax rate, they will distribute 30% of of that cut evenly among their employees. So, if the next govt cuts the corporate rate to 30c, the business would commit to distributing 1c in the dollar among their employees.

Now the period of this distribution commitment is something that needs to be fleshed out. The two ideas I have thus far are:

1. From the implementation of the tax cut to the end of the parliamentary term.
2. From the implementation of the tax cut to the point at which govt. revenue returns to the level it was at prior to the cut.

Thoughts? PLEASE POST COMMENTS! Is it a good idea? A stupid idea? Reasons?