Ryan Bridge: the treasury's told us what we knew all along

The $66-billion question hanging over Labour's head has been answered. This new Treasury report tells us what we all already knew about Labour's Covid response.  They went too far. Spent like a drunken sailor. Made it rain dollar bills.  When Treasury advised them to pull back, they didn't they kept going.  Covid was the most expensive economic to this country. The government spent $66-billion - which is 20% of our GDP. Of that, just 18% was spent on specific pandemic healthcare costs.   Then they just kept spending.  Forget the Nigerian prince, this is the biggest scam to hit kiwi shores.  They also spent the Covid fund on things like school lunches and art therapy programmes.  The report tip toes around it but the clear inference of this report is Labour went too far pulling the fiscal leaver. The Reserve Bank should be using monetary policy to bulk of the heaving lifting in future events.  At the same time this report landed on Labour's lap like a tonne of bricks, Chris Hipkins was in Queenstown chatting about the policies they don't have but will probably have going into the election.  Guess what's on the menu? A capital gains tax. More government spending. And talk that the Treasury-imposed safe debt cap could be increased.  So debt, Tax. And spend.  People may not like Luxon's delivery of this message, it grates, but you can't hide from the fact those guys screwed the pooch. And the pooch, if they were to get back into power, best be preparing for more screwing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.