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Budget verdict
Sir_Humphrey
Posts: 1,978 Forumite
Hi all
Just a quick poll - what is your verdict on the budget? I have tried to reflect a spectrum of opinion without having too many categories.
I have limited the vote to two days so this will be an initial reaction.
Just a quick poll - what is your verdict on the budget? I have tried to reflect a spectrum of opinion without having too many categories.
I have limited the vote to two days so this will be an initial reaction.
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. J. K. Galbraith
What do you think of the Budget 134 votes
This will lead a renewal of the glorious prosperity of Cool Britannia
0%
1 vote
Best of a bad job
19%
26 votes
He needed to cut tax more/raise spending more (i.e more expansionary)
1%
2 votes
He needed to cut spending more/raise tax more (i.e more fiscally conservative)
46%
62 votes
Down with the Nu Liebour scum
24%
33 votes
None of above/don't know/too soon to say
7%
10 votes
0
Comments
-
He should have cut taxes AND cut spending.
A smaller, decentralised and more accountable public sector is needed for the country to compete in a global economy.Favourite hobbies: Watersports. Relaxing in Coffee Shop. Investing in stocks.
Personality type: Compassionate Male Armadillo. Sockies: None.0 -
I think we needed clarity and simplicity, not more schemes of debatable worth. I think fiscally conservative is what we need. I think the tax raises, were, although I'm reluctant, necessary for the climate, but I would have supported greater cut backs. And fewer schemes. Down with schemes.0
-
We are where we are and where we deserve to be.
Consecutive elections have been fought on the promise of tax cuts. Not because tax cuts were affordable nor because they were in the best interests of the Country. Because we are naturally greedy capitalists at heart.
With hindsight, it may have been better (more prudent :rotfl: - a word destined for the dustbin no doubt) to have kept the higher rate of tax at 50% and the lower rate at 25%. The 'excess' could have been salted away for future generations.
If the Tories hadn't started the cycle of tax cuts (shifting the tax burden from the rich to the poor), maybe there would have been no need for Gordon Brown's well-publicised raid on pension funds. If we, as voters, could have seen beyond the promises of unsustainable tax cuts, maybe we would be in a better position to weather the current storm.
Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown (as Chancellor) have their faults but I don't look back at a time when the Tories had a better Chancellor.
GGThere are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those that don't.0 -
Voted too soon to say - because as best I have heard comment - all it needs is for the forecasts on growth to be wrong - and it blows all the other figures out of the water, and I just ain't got an iota of faith in forecasts.
It's all in the Red Book - and never has that been more apt - "in the red" book, and with a vengeance.If many little people, in many little places, do many little things,
they can change the face of the world.
- African proverb -0 -
I think for me there was no great surprise. Token gesture of an increased ISA rate, raised duties/indirect tax in the usual places. Maybe the higher tax rate of 50% was a surprise - a pleasant one for me, I don't see why those who will suffer least in the recession (and gain most when we recover) should contribute a little more to get the country back on its feet.
The thing that scared me was that I agreed with Cameron for once! He was dead right when he said Labour had criticized the Tories for wanting to cut waste, arguing it meant cuts to services, and now they themselves were doing it.“I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.” - P.G. Wodehouse0 -
So why has tax as a % of GDP continually risen?Gorgeous_George wrote: »Consecutive elections have been fought on the promise of tax cuts.
The greed has come from the public sector that has stolen more of the private sector's money.Not because tax cuts were affordable nor because they were in the best interests of the Country. Because we are naturally greedy capitalists at heart.
Would this have been on top of the doubling of NICS since the 70s? The doubling of VAT? The vast increases in tobacco, alcohol and fuel duties?kept the higher rate of tax at 50% and the lower rate at 25%. The 'excess' could have been salted away for future generations.
In 1997 total debt built up over the past 300 years was £300bn. Gordo matched that in the last 8 years and Darling will add another £350bn in the next two and another £350bn in the three years after that. This Labour government has been the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of not just Great Britain but England prior to that. :mad:Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown (as Chancellor) have their faults but I don't look back at a time when the Tories had a better Chancellor.
GG"The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else." -- Frederic Bastiat, 1848.0 -
Yay! I'm £600 better off per year because of the budget. Good old Labour.
Mortgage Free in 3 Years (Apr 2007 / Currently / Δ Difference)
[strike]● Interest Only Pt: £36,924.12 / £ - - - - 1.00 / Δ £36,923.12[/strike] - Paid off! Yay!!
● Home Extension: £48,468.07 / £44,435.42 / Δ £4032.65
● Repayment Part: £64,331.11 / £59,877.15 / Δ £4453.96
Total Mortgage Debt: £149,723.30 / £104,313.57 / Δ £45,409.730 -
Dithering_Dad wrote: »Yay! I'm £600 better off per year because of the budget. Good old Labour.
I'm £262 a year better off apparently.0 -
What are you going to spend it all on?Mortgage Free in 3 Years (Apr 2007 / Currently / Δ Difference)
[strike]● Interest Only Pt: £36,924.12 / £ - - - - 1.00 / Δ £36,923.12[/strike] - Paid off! Yay!!
● Home Extension: £48,468.07 / £44,435.42 / Δ £4032.65
● Repayment Part: £64,331.11 / £59,877.15 / Δ £4453.96
Total Mortgage Debt: £149,723.30 / £104,313.57 / Δ £45,409.730 -
Dithering_Dad wrote: »Yay! I'm £600 better off per year because of the budget. Good old Labour.
They/Labour have borrowed £2000 in your name to give you £600. More like bad old Labour. :mad:Favourite hobbies: Watersports. Relaxing in Coffee Shop. Investing in stocks.
Personality type: Compassionate Male Armadillo. Sockies: None.0
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