160 Billion Annual Deficit.

JonnyBravo

drc wrote: »

£43 billion just servicing the debt interest :eek:. Wonder what the £74 billion "other" is?

Expenses??

Graham_Devon

Social protection was supposed to go down this year, in line with less out of work. But it's gone up yet again.

This has surely got to be one of the key focus areas. It's over a quarter of total UK spend.

Spending on the NHS has more than doubled in 8 years. Another area to possibly look at.

Kohoutek

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Social protection...has surely got to be one of the key focus areas. It's over a quarter of total UK spend.

Spending on the NHS has more than doubled in 8 years. Another area to possibly look at.

I agree, but it's two areas that neither party will want to touch...

drc

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Social protection was supposed to go down this year, in line with less out of work. But it's gone up yet again.

This has surely got to be one of the key focus areas. It's over a quarter of total UK spend.

Spending on the NHS has more than doubled in 8 years. Another area to possibly look at.

What is it exactly? Welfare spending?

Kohoutek

drc wrote: »

What is it exactly? Welfare spending?

And old age pensions.

http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/prototype/

Mexas

I cant believe we spunk £4billion on Prisons and £6billion on courts.

goRt

I'm paying 2.5k extra tax this year - I had no involvement in getting us into this mess, but I'm paying to get you out

I favour a tax on consumption (VAT) as I can choose to avoid that (as we all can)

kabayiri

Let's remember this is not just a 160bn deficit.

The sheer amount of the overspend, plus the impact of the debt interest, limits the opportunity costs for the next government.

It's like having a major fiscal anchor dragging along the bottom as we try and engineer the economy for growth.

Transforming the UK economy to diversify away from finance, and create serious core skills in green areas like renewable energy and electric vehicles is going to cost serious money.

It's highly likely the next government is going to have to rely on continued use of expensive PFI too.

Kohoutek

kabayiri wrote: »

Transforming the UK economy to diversify away from finance, and create serious core skills in green areas like renewable energy and electric vehicles is going to cost serious money.

The '1 million green jobs' nonsense from Brown is misleading. Surely the vast majority of people that will take those jobs have to be people that are already qualified as engineers or scientists, and therefore likely already have a job. There's also the fact that the companies involved in the £100 billion wind project are so far American, Japanese and German.

kabayiri

Kohoutek wrote: »

The '1 million green jobs' nonsense from Brown is misleading. Surely the vast majority of people that will take those jobs have to be people that are already qualified as engineers or scientists, and therefore likely already have a job. There's also the fact that the companies involved in the £100 billion wind project are so far American, Japanese and German.

I share your concerns, but I think we have to try, somehow.