'Do you support public spending cuts?' poll discussion

LeeSouthEast

Yes we need cuts, but not in the way this government seems to be doing them.

Reluctant_spender

We need the cuts it's as simple as that. regardless of who is in power cuts were coming. we can all argue the toss on benefits and foreign aid and the like but frontline services will be cut. Councils will play the political game instead of working together.

We are all in this mess.

srtman

Over the years the public sector has employed to many people to such a degree that there is more money going out (salaries, pensions etc) than what is coming in(taxes). I tend to compare it to household expediture eg if your wage doesnt cover all the bills you are in trouble so you have to make sacrifices. Cut back on spending, go out less etc etc

tr8

Cuts are the only option you cannot spend what you dont have.
Benifits should only be paid in tokens, and if you are unemployed mustdo at least 2 days a week working for the comunity, whether that is help an old person tidy there garden or picking litter from the beach, woods etc. Nothing is for FREE. Put a Cap on civil servant pension and wages about 8 times lowest paid, I think thats to high but others will complain

Ali34

The conservative government (not I did not say coalition!) is conducting an idealogical destruction of the state. The deficit is no more than a smoke screen to justify this action. All of the rhetoric and statistics only ever show half of the equation. The current deficit, as a proportion of GDP is actually the same as it was in 1993 and is not significantly different to what it has been over the last 15 to 20 years.

The structural part of the deficit (i.e the money used to bale out the banks) is very likely to be repaid and may realise a profit for the country. As an example for every penny, yes penny, that RBS shares are above the acquistion price of 49p, the country will make £900m.

Repayment of this structural deficit means that the residual deficit will be better than it has been for the last 20 years, yet we are still listening to the sensationalist rhetoric of the political parties and we are all being conned.

C_Mababejive

He also refers to the pending execution of the rescue team by the 'Death of a Thousand Cuts' by saying 'the British are used to cuts' referring to the cutbacks in Government spending before and probably during the time of the filming


An excerpt from Carry on up the Kyber with the late great Kenneth Williams made in 1968.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_On..._Up_the_Khyber


you see..the British ARE used to cuts...

CapricornLass

TR8, could I give you a couple of facts regarding civil servants pay and pensions?

1. Did you realise that almost 2/3rd of all the civil servants in the country earn less than £25K? And that 48% earn less than £18K? The public sector pensions only pay out 1/80 for each year of employment, and their members have to pay contributions into that, sometimes as much as 6%. I let you do the maths, but the results are hardly gold plated, are they, even if you complete 40 years. And most people have less years service than that.

2. The main public sector pension scheme was overhauled five years ago to ensure that it was affordable, and that it would continue to be so in the next fifty years. Who said the final results were affordable? HM Treasury.

3. What about all of the unpaid/evaded tax - mainly by the likes of David Cameron's millionaire cronies? The total outstanding would make a HUGE dent in the national debt - if it didn't clear it altogether. (The main reason is that the Inland Revenue has shed its staff, so it hasn't enough people to collect it - nor, for that matter, to sort out the current mess that the new computer system has put them into.)

4. This is the one that I really would like an answer for. Could you please explain why civil servants are to be singled out for having their pensions capped? i seem to remember a certain person retiring from RBS on £750k pension A YEAR after almost bring the bank to its knees and which civil servants (as taxpayers) had to bail out. Why should he and his ilk be protected?

mrprosser

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Yes...

If its a choice between me paying more tax and us having cuts then cut cut cut...

Also cut foreign aid/cut quangos/cut government junkets and partying

The problem of course is that your (and everyone else's) tax burden is going to increase, and still there are going to be cuts.

Do you really expect VAT to go back down once the national debt is significantly reduced?

Arenasarenas

Well we are clearly back to selfish politics. I would be proud to pay more tax to help out the country and avoid cutting public services, I can afford it and so can lots of very rich folk that the Torys are helping to stay rich. Its sad that we have become a nation of tax dodgers, everybody looking out for themselves and not supporting each other - what nice people we are!

sharrison01

Last year, the govt decided to follow a policy of spending our way out of recession. They cut rates and added quantitive easing to encourage banks to lend money to businesses and consumers and this was held highly enough by the international community that they all followed. This should work by keeping people in jobs and stimulating growth, thus propelling us out of recession.

This year, Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal have scared the governments in Europe with their sovereign debt problems. To reassure the Eurozone, they each announced how much they would cut and they pretty much plucked the numbers out of the air and were competing to see who could promise the most. The UK were encouraged to follow suit and it made good politics internationally for the new government to oblige. However, the right move for the PIGS of Europe who retire at 58 (in Greece) and in their early 60's (Portugal, Spain, Ireland), do not bother paying tax, wish to work as few hours a week as possible and are happy to let other countries prop up their economy through property is not necessarily the right move for the UK.

If the previous government had decided to adopt a policy of austerity measures rather than spending our way out of trouble then that would be a different issue. We could have all been more careful with money and saved rather than spent but this would have raised the question of deflation where people do not spend as prices are falling and thus businesses do not survive. See Japan over the last two decades. The government decided to spend and encouraged us to do the same and to now suddenly do the opposite could have a really detrimental effect.

The point is that there are several acknowledged ways of getting out of a recession, all with historical references, but there is no point adopting a method and then doing the opposite a year later. The government has massive exposure to the banking sector and if people start losing jobs through public spending cuts then these banks will gradually be worth nothing leaving the government with a bigger hole.

We are a country of entrepreneurs that are happy to work hard to enjoy life's luxuries. We do not take siesta's or have the summer off because it is too hot. We should be looking to our Scandinavian cousins with their excellent schooling and healthcare for examples on how to ride high in a recession and not the lazy Mediterranean countries that live off handouts from the rest of Europe.