If you were PM... where would you cut back?

MrTomato

rpiechocki wrote: »

So everyone thinks that footballers 150k per week(same as GP's per year) & film stars(one film would pay for a new school) should carry on gettting what they do.Add all that up would come to good amount.What i'm saying that this type of profession should be capped.

Also models ie Katie Price worth 40million, for what while we have hard working people across all disciplines getting a fraction of this & work 10 times as hard.

Defence - so if we reduce this, it would be ok for this country to be invaded without any problem due to the lack of secuity.It needs to be increased & pay more to our soldiers!!

This doesn't make much sense.

Firstly, footballers. Football is a private industry. The clubs can afford to pay those wages. The fans pay to watch these people play. It is entertainment, and that is what it is valued at.

Another thing to consider here is this: There are very few players who get 150k per week. The reason they do is because they are good at what they do. There are millions, if not billions, of people who play football in the world. Only a select few become hugely talented, hugely paid people.

Footballers wages are a case of supply and demand.

What difference would capping anyones pay make? The Government aren't/can't claim the difference. Any capping would have a negative effect on funds. Less tax coming in.


Katie Price has as much money as she does because people want/wanted to see her. They wanted to see her pictures and read her stories and interviews. Again, if people want it, she can make them pay more to have it.

If we reduced the defence budget, why would we become more vulnerable to attack? We have the 4th biggest defence spending in the world, despite us having quite a small army.

Ireland has the 65th biggest spending. I don't see them getting invaded. Besides, we have the EU, NATO and the UN. We wouldn't suddenly get bombed just because we cancelled some naval or aviation orders.

MrTomato

weejimmys wrote: »

yes that is fine as its paid for by private companies and dose not take money away from you or anyone else.

ie footballer.
paid by the club,
club gets money from tv / sponsers / ticket sales / merchidise.
if you want any of these you buy them and they use your money.
if you dont you dont buy them and they dont use your money.

wheres the issue?

defence increase the money, they need it,

social take it away, or have a maximum 24 months you can claim any time in your life etc. unless you need /deserve it.

throw out the goverment and start again but instead of geting people you went to university with you to do the job get business minded people who have done it before in real life.

Business minded people? Businesses don't do things to benefit others, and they don't do anything out of the good of their hearts. Business is about making profit, and lots of it.

I don't want to see our Government turned into a private enterprise thank you very much.

And if your PM or whatever, you can't just get your university friends to be in the cabinet or house of commons, they actually have to be MPs.

Slayer11

A lot of people have mentioned cutting back on the civil service, along with how civil servants are overpaid, and have too many benefits including a nice pension etc.

If you want to comment on this then at least think about what you’re saying, and look at all the facts.

I work for a government department, we administer tax credits, protect are borders, stop drugs and illegal tobacco from entering the country and yet we are treated too well?

Go and search the internet and you’ll read the facts, our pay rise last year was way below inflation, our pension scheme has changed and is in the process of changing again meaning we won’t be able to retire until 67 (which I have to say I agree with), half our staff are of the 2 lowest grades meaning wages start at 12,724 a year rising by around 2% a year unless you gain promotion meaning you will earn £15,000 per year again only getting between 1-2% rise year on year. HMRC alone are slashing staff numbers by 25,000 over 5 years (15,000 already gone, 10,000 left to go before 2011) Our budget is being reduced by 5% every year in real terms for 5 years, 250+ local tax offices have shut.

So are you thinking it’s about time? What does all this mean? We now haven’t got enough staff to cope with the workloads, tax credit claims are rising due to the current financial crisis with no staff to process claims meaning people who need the money to live and survive aren’t getting it when they should, borders aren’t protected meaning drugs, excise goods, and immigrants can simply walk in (immigration is actually covered by Border Force staff but ties in with our work) all putting more strain on things like the NHS and our benefit system, the tax offices closed down now mean local businesses are faced with extra processing time when starting businesses and paying bills etc meaning less money ploughed back in to the UK, our compliance and criminal investigation directorates are so badly resourced that instead of collecting the billions outstanding by non-complaint businesses they simply get away with it.

This is a novel idea, instead of saying cut civil service budgets how about give them the money they need to run properly and reaping the rewards of the extra revenue they would bring in, slash a billion off their budgets but lose another 2 billion through not having the resources to collect the money that builds our schools, supports our military and pays for that police office who stopped the lady down the road getting attacked.

bumpoowee

Slayer11 wrote: »

I work for a government department, we administer tax credits, protect are borders, stop drugs and illegal tobacco from entering the country and yet we are treated too well?

So you think you should all be millionaires with private jets just because you push paper around for 30 minutes a day between yapping and playing solitaire?

This is exactly the problem with the public sector, you all think you deserve better that everyone else despite having little or no skills and being incredibly lazy. I used to work in an environment full of ex public sector workers and I can tell you I am not exagerrating in any way.

MothballsWallet

I'm with Gavin83 and others regarding IVF on the NHS - unable to breed? Feel sorry for you, but you ain't getting help from the taxpayer to pay for it.

The Child Trust Fund would go, and child benefit would be limited to first 2 children only - after that, you're on your own.

Footballers and rich company executives would be taxed at 99%.

Slayer11

bumpoowee wrote: »

So you think you should all be millionaires with private jets just because you push paper around for 30 minutes a day between yapping and playing solitaire?

Thats the whole point, if you don't and haven't worked in the public sector you've simply decided to be a sheep and follow everyone elses opinion of civil servents, by the way you seemed to missed the quote regarding wages:-

Slayer11 wrote: »

Half our staff are of the 2 lowest grades meaning wages start at 12,724 a year rising by around 2% a year unless you gain promotion meaning you will earn £15,000 per year again only getting between 1-2% rise year on year.

Not quite the millionaires lifestyle is it? Think i'll be saving up for a while longer for my private jet.

MrTomato

Slayer11 wrote: »

Thats the whole point, if you don't and haven't worked in the public sector you've simply decided to be a sheep and follow everyone elses opinion of civil servents, by the way you seemed to missed the quote regarding wages:-



Not quite the millionaires lifestyle is it? Think i'll be saving up for a while longer for my private jet.

I had an interview in the public sector, for HMRC, and when I walked through the office, what did I see? People working hard? No people shouting across the room, feet up. I was offered the job, for £7.50 an hour. For absolutely no experience or qualifications, and a job which isn't even a job, do you consider that bad pay?

The public sector is clearly overpaid for what it does. The same admin assistant would be on the bare minimum wage in the private sector, and would be expected to work for it.

CLIVE_WALDER

We should firstly get out of Afghanistan which is a bottomless pit of money which will produce nothing. After that we should close all the tax loopholes used by the rich (the real scroungers in our society rather than welfare recipients on £60 a week!)To avoid paying not just their fair share of tax but in many cases any of it.

The government should establish real job creation schemes at a level that will pay taxation and create wealth. There would be less people and more people paying tax who could buy things other people produce keeping them in wealth. Failing that any company threatening redundancies should be taken over, run by their workers and the community and work out how best t use their skills for society’s (and not a handful of rich, greedy shareholders) benefit.

If we did this we would have much more taxation and would need to have this discussion

bibi_neko

MrTomato wrote: »

For absolutely no experience or qualifications, and a job which isn't even a job, do you consider that bad pay?

For the bold section, I would say for some people in this country it is a good thing. Many people are going to university but many are also leaving school without qualifications but that doesn't make them any less qualified for some work. Jobs like this could be an opportunity for some. As for the pay depending where you live it wouldn't go that far, like in London. If they aren't doing the work then it's management responsibility to train staff and make sure they are doing their job.

Personally I think most jobs would require some sort of learning as you work since not all jobs would be the same even if they had the same title or work description.

MrTomato

bibi_neko wrote: »

For the bold section, I would say for some people in this country it is a good thing. Many people are going to university but many are also leaving school without qualifications but that doesn't make them any less qualified for some work. Jobs like this could be an opportunity for some. As for the pay depending where you live it wouldn't go that far, like in London. If they aren't doing the work then it's management responsibility to train staff and make sure they are doing their job.

Personally I think most jobs would require some sort of learning as you work since not all jobs would be the same even if they had the same title or work description.

But this doesn't give them the right to demand high pay for very basic jobs.