Government borrowing up again

billybear1

Thrugelmir wrote: »

My unusual work background has exposed me to a wide variety of situations and people over the years. As I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly.

I have recently contacted the Students Loans Company stating exactly that - if they were an open market private company, their sheer incompetence would have lead them to ruin years ago.

It seems with all aspects of government I come into contact with, be it SLC, HMRC on a personal level, or other areas on a business level the sheer incompetence of enforcing their own policies is astounding.

What does this mean for the taxpayer? Huge wage bills for staff carrying out the task many times - no such thing as right first time in the public sector. Failed technology implementations - I have seen at least three "web portals" set up and fail in as many years.

This may be anecdotal - but the underlying issue is the same - incompetence breads inefficiencies. Perhaps these cuts aren't really austerity measures, but trimming the fat of what is a tired, inefficient ogre sapping money from the taxpayer. One that unless it changes - we will continue to see our deficit rise.

Seabee42

Tromking wrote: »

Your post reads like a right leaning cliche from my viewpoint, however even I would suggest that public sector reform is needed and has happened, but I think we`re further down the line now. The question for the next generation is, do we want quality public services and do we collectively want to pay for them?

I personally think some areas of public sector are desired and at a high quality to. However things like 2 years redundancy are not one of those things. Realistically speaking there have been very few real cuts and to actually cut government spending the government (of whatever colour) is going to have to do less somewhere. The main success has been to reform civil service pensions to reflect the massive increase in cost due to longevity.


Some low hanging fruit has to go i.e. winter fuel allowance, free bus passes etc. The NHS is quite frankly not funded for the baby boomers and again perhaps it cannot provide every service it does?


You can of course raise taxes and people will look at income tax and suggest our taxation levels are not that high but when you include NI and after income taxes our over all level of taxation is very high historically. That still takes money out of the economy though.

James_B.

Tromking wrote: »

Your post reads like a right leaning cliche from my viewpoint, however even I would suggest that public sector reform is needed and has happened, but I think we`re further down the line now. The question for the next generation is, do we want quality public services and do we collectively want to pay for them?

Yes, and yes, but to me "collectively" paying for them just does not happen at present. The highest earners pay for the vast majority of the services, out of all proportion to their earnings, and lower earners pay little to nothing.

It's time that we had a fairer tax distribution, which means more tax being paid by lower earners, and a reduction in the top rates.

Seabee42

James_B. wrote: »

Yes, and yes, but to me "collectively" paying for them just does not happen at present. The highest earners pay for the vast majority of the services, out of all proportion to their earnings, and lower earners pay little to nothing.

It's time that we had a fairer tax distribution, which means more tax being paid by lower earners, and a reduction in the top rates.

Partly I agree in that there are to many benefits applying to the middle classes not really the intention of benefits. However if the rich employ the rest on such rubbish wages such that the only way to survive is government subsidy there is nothing left to tax. The only thing left is to reduce the standard of living further whilst the rich enjoy the system. Its the one thing I have never understood about rioters why riot in your own back yard surely you should target the rich!!!

N1AK

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The rapid increase in personal allowance is now appearing an expensive mistake. In terms of lost income tax revenue. Difficult to balance popularity with austerity.

I guess it depends on your definition of mistake. I personally wouldn't define any measure that decreased taxation as a mistake just for that reason. We could have raised more tax in any number of other ways that might have been better than taxing very low incomes. The issue comes down to why incomes haven't been increasing as unemployment has fallen. Are the increases going to arrive soon now that we've got unemployment down or is there another issue (low productivity, not enough high skilled jobs being created...)?

Thrugelmir

N1AK wrote: »

I guess it depends on your definition of mistake. I personally wouldn't define any measure that decreased taxation as a mistake just for that reason. We could have raised more tax in any number of other ways that might have been better than taxing very low incomes. The issue comes down to why incomes haven't been increasing as unemployment has fallen. Are the increases going to arrive soon now that we've got unemployment down or is there another issue (low productivity, not enough high skilled jobs being created...)?

Since the early 90's another 2.5 billion people have joined the global labour market. There's no shortage of low skilled workers. Aided by modern technology and the cost effectiveness of shipping (containers). Production plants can be sited sited anywhere in the world.

High skilled jobs require suitability qualified labour. Companies on the whole grow organically. As many jobs are about learning a trade. Gaining the experience from others. Not reading a textbook. There's been underinvestment in apprenticeships for years. Not helped by the fact that there's plenty of clean jobs (administrative) which pay a reasonable salary from the outset.

The UK has a fixation with investing in property rather than valuing something which generates wealth and further opportunities in the future.