Tax Rises or Public Sector Spending cuts?

setmefree2

We can argue until the cows come home about the UK deficit in the short term. Given that there will probably be an election mid 2010 - what would you prefer to see a govenment do in the medium term to balance the UK budget? Raise taxes, cut public sector spending, a mixture or something else?

Regards

SMF2

purch

Yes............................all of the above

abaxas

Please replace the or with an and.

chewmylegoff

setmefree2 wrote: »

We can argue until the cows come home about the UK deficit in the short term. Given that there will probably be an election mid 2010 - what would you prefer to see a govenment do in the medium term to balance the UK budget? Raise taxes, cut public sector spending, a mixture or something else?

Regards

SMF2

i expect 3 terms of tory rule, where little changes but we hear a lot about what labour did wrong. a bit like the last time there was a change of power really.

as for tax rises / spending cuts. well....yes, both, especially as the tax take is going to keep falling.

Wookster

I think a more progressive tax system would be good - less burden on the low earners (sub £20k) and a higher burden on earners over £100k and perhaps another tier at £150k.

Graham_Devon

setmefree2 wrote: »

We can argue until the cows come home about the UK deficit in the short term. Given that there will probably be an election mid 2010 - what would you prefer to see a govenment do in the medium term to balance the UK budget? Raise taxes, cut public sector spending, a mixture or something else?

Regards

SMF2

Just cut government waste. That would save hundreds of millions if implemented correctly.

By government, I mean NHS, Police, Civil Service etc. Don't neccesarily mean staff, I mean waste on procedures, red tape, targets and contracts that require 20 people to sign something off just to get given a biro.

exil

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Just cut government waste. That would save hundreds of millions if implemented correctly.

By government, I mean NHS, Police, Civil Service etc. Don't neccesarily mean staff, I mean waste on procedures, red tape, targets and contracts that require 20 people to sign something off just to get given a biro.

Well, the red tape is there to make sure money is not being wasted.

And "hundreds of millions" isn't going to fill much of the hole.

Until the recession is over the government should neither increase taxes nor (in general) cut spending. This is what governments tried to do in the 30s and it didn't work - the depression continued until governments were forced to spend money to prepare for war, which brought an end to recession at the cost of millions of lives. I just hope THAT part of history doesn't repeat itself.

After the recession ends then taxes will be somewhat higher than they would otherwise have been and some of the more ambitious capital projects may be shelved. So we may have to put up with old and understaffed hospitals and schools, potholes in the roads and poor trains services.

chewmylegoff

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Just cut government waste. That would save hundreds of millions if implemented correctly.

By government, I mean NHS, Police, Civil Service etc. Don't neccesarily mean staff, I mean waste on procedures, red tape, targets and contracts that require 20 people to sign something off just to get given a biro.

the cost of "red tape" is the cost of paying all the people involved in it.

hence if there really was a process of getting 20 people to sign something off to procure a biro, and you changed the process to require only 1 person to sign off, the other 19 people are going to be redundant and can be fired.

so you are talking about staff in the sense of the things that you have mentioned above.

what the civil service really needs to do in my view is look at the cost inherent in the downwards pressure on headcount. the amounts paid to contractors (who do not appear on headcount) are ridiculous. there is massive wastage caused here in an attempt to make it appear that waste is being cut when it is not.

another thing they need to do is reverse their disastrous procurement and contract negotiation processes. the effectively create monopolies by deciding to enter into exclusivity agreements with suppliers. e.g. my old dept would only deal with one travel company, such that if you needed to go abroad for work you had to book through them. you could have booked on line for 1/2 the price, but the genius that was the procurement policy blocked this. the supplier knew they could charge you silly amounts, because you were locked into an agreement to only deal with them for the next year. this is all the result of employing cheap amateurs in roles which should be filled by a small number of expensive professionals.

Wookster

chewmylegoff wrote: »

another thing they need to do is reverse their disastrous procurement and contract negotiation processes. the effectively create monopolies by deciding to enter into exclusivity agreements with suppliers. e.g. my old dept would only deal with one travel company, such that if you needed to go abroad for work you had to book through them. you could have booked on line for 1/2 the price, but the genius that was the procurement policy blocked this. the supplier knew they could charge you silly amounts, because you were locked into an agreement to only deal with them for the next year.

I'll bet you there are all sorts of backhanders going on there.

What the government needs is a massive efficiency drive, and for the idea that a job in the civil service is a job for life needs to be thoroughly blown out of the water. It should be if you don't perform, you're out. Just like the private sector.

Graham_Devon

It was a very blase way of looking at it.

But there is gross wastage. I work in the NHS, but not really for the NHS. Even things such as buying supplies....suppliers see "NHS contract", the NHS gets locked in, and prices double. No kidding.

I'm buying stuff from where I have to buy from, something that costs £70 everywhere else, for £160, because "thats the way its done and thats who they buy it from". Theres £90 of taxpayers money going down the drain every time.

Of course, the suppliers change every 2-3 years when their contracts end, and they look for "value" again.

Anyway, this is quite off topic

Chew...I see we have just basically said the same thing!!

Masomnia

Putting people out of work is clearly a bad idea, since it means more benefit claimants, and the government shouldn't stop spending on infrastructure etc. So I'd only support cuts in spending to getting rid of non-essentials like ID cards.

I'd raise some taxes, higher tax bracket could be put up I think, and VAT to 20%. Close tax loopholes too, that should bring in some extra cash.

The problem with raising taxes is that it takes money out of people's hands so they have less to spend, it would just slow the economy down.