'Do you support public spending cuts?' poll discussion

SapphireFlames

alimckay - Public sector pensions are gold plated in comparison with most private sector ones. Almost all public sector workers have guaranteed pensions which are linked to their final salaries, whereas most private sector workers' pensions are linked to investment performance (these pensions are known as money purchase or defined contribution) which means there is no guarantee of how much they will get when they retire.

Final salary pensions were fine years ago, but now that life expectancy has improved, they're no longer sustainable and they are very expensive to provide. The employer contribution is very high (in some extreme cases around 30% of the employee's salary, which is paid by taxpayers). Very few private sector employers would pay such high contributions into an employee's pension - it's typically around 5% of salary. So a private sector worker would have to pay a significant proportion of their salary into their pension in order to get the same outcome as a public sector worker. It's a matter of fairness - I think that public sector workers should have defined contribution (money purchase) pensions just like practically everyone else in this country. I have worked in the pensions industry in the not-too-distant past, so I understand just how expensive it is to provide final salary pensions these days, and many such schemes have heavy deficits.


There is more info about gold plated pensions here: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/pensions/article.html?in_article_id=487306&in_page_id=6

Caparn

Personally I'm just amazed at the total s**t the labour government has left us in.
What a bunch of b******ds borrowing so much money and wasting even more with PFI "initiatives".
They should be taken to court and prosecuted for the misery that is about to ensue.

evanmow1

I've worked in both the private sector and the public sector both during the last recession and this one and, if I had a couple of hours to tell you I could explain to you how deprived the public sector is compared to private in respect of money spent - antiquated and inadequate IT systems, little or no support staff ...the list could go one. As one of the staff at the bottom of the scale in the public sector I don't get any bonuses/concessions which were available in my private sector job i.e. shares, overtime etc. I work many extra hours than I'm contracted to simply to ensure that my customers (the general public) get the services they require. I, like the many lower paid workers in the public sector, are just trying to earn a living.It's not about public sector cuts its about making those cuts in the right places. If those 9,000 highly paid workers took a pay cut to a more reasonable salary and many others who are paid too much did the same it might not be necessary to cut the services needed and would ensure that fewer staff were made redundant.

Happychappy

evanmow1 wrote: »

I've worked in both the private sector and the public sector both during the last recession and this one and, if I had a couple of hours to tell you I could explain to you how deprived the public sector is compared to private in respect of money spent - antiquated and inadequate IT systems, little or no support staff ...the list could go one. As one of the staff at the bottom of the scale in the public sector I don't get any bonuses/concessions which were available in my private sector job i.e. shares, overtime etc. I work many extra hours than I'm contracted to simply to ensure that my customers (the general public) get the services they require. I, like the many lower paid workers in the public sector, are just trying to earn a living.It's not about public sector cuts its about making those cuts in the right places. If those 9,000 highly paid workers took a pay cut to a more reasonable salary and many others who are paid too much did the same it might not be necessary to cut the services needed and would ensure that fewer staff were made redundant.

How about the god knows how many thousand workshy, con artist, fraudsters happy to live off the backs of others, now get off their !!!!'s and work and contribute in taxes, rather than those who do work, now working for less :mad:

ipod_killed_the_musicshop

Caparn wrote: »

Personally I'm just amazed at the total s**t the labour government has left us in.
What a bunch of b******ds borrowing so much money and wasting even more with PFI "initiatives".
They should be taken to court and prosecuted for the misery that is about to ensue.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

jordan40

cuts will be to extreme sending us back into reccession,and when the unemployment rises and the doom and gloom sets in,especially for the young are getting there youth clubs taken away and various cuts leaving top charities and help groups denied funding along with the improvement for schools,these areas being shut and cut will hit us hard,especially the vulnerable,including social services and more baby p,outrages,so all you cut lovers dont moan when these groups no longer can do there job properly!!and dont moan when crime rises and young people are hanging out on street corners along with more homeless and more mental health problems arise!!when you cut these areas and people are angry and upset with closures and nothing to do!remember what cuts to extremely important groups can do!!its already happening.

yeldarb

Martin Lewis is always banging on about living within your means.

The simple fact is that government is spending more than it is
earning - i.e. we, as a country, are not living within our means.

If our government was a family on TV the first thing Lewis would do is cut waste and spending to get the family living within their means. The next thing he would do is tackle how to reduce the debt. This is exactly what our government are doing.

I simply cannot comprehend how 40% of people visiting this web site, which is all about getting out of debt and living within your means, can say that it's okay to keep spending in the hope of future riches! :mad: Do people not listen to a word of what Lewis preaches?

SapphireFlames

Some people (yes, Happychappy!) get themselves whipped up in a frenzy about benefit fraud, but I wonder if they realise that this only accounts for a small part of the defict problem? Estimates vary, but the amount of revenue lost via benefit fraud is around £5bn, whereas the amount lost to tax evasion is nearly 10 times higher (£42bn). For comparison, the budget deficit for this year is about £155bn. Therefore, tackling tax evasion wouldn't negate the need for spending cuts, but it would mean that the cuts could be a bit less severe.

I'm not saying that benefit fraud shouldn't be tackled (it is a crime and of course it needs to be dealt with), just that there should be more focus on tax evasion. The media's focus on benefit fraud seems to be disproportionate to the amount of revenue lost. Dealing with tax evasion would cost a bit more in the short-term, but you could get a greater "return on investment" than you could if you focused the bulk of your efforts on benefit fraud..

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/sep/22/tax-gap-information-beautiful#zoomed-picture