A policy unravelling?

BobQ

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31962179

Osborne seems to causing some confusion in claiming that the post election cuts will be no more than we have endured in the past five years.

The claim is not supported by the OBR and seems to presume massive cuts in police, defence, tax avoidance and welfare.

Smoke and mirrors?

Had Labour presented such flimsy arguments they would be castigated by the right wing press. At least the Daily Mail had something to say about it......

George Osborne was urged today to explain how he will achieve large cuts sketched out in the Budget - or leave voters guessing whether public services were heading for deepening post-election austerity.

Forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) suggest the plans to cut back the deficit before ending austerity a year early will mean a "rollercoaster" ride for public services, with a tightening squeeze followed by a spending splurge.

Analysis suggests the cuts in 2016/17 and 2017/18 of more than 5% would be twice the size of any so far achieved by the coalition.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3001687/Osborne-seeks-Budget-election-boost.html#ixzz3UquBBTGt
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Mr Johnson said of the new plans: "Put the implied increase in public service spending in 2019/20 together with the cuts beforehand and you get what OBR chief Robert Chote describes as a 'rollercoaster' ride for public service spending.

"The cuts of more than 5% implied in each of 2016/17 and 2017/18 are twice the size of any year's cuts over this parliament."

He said the Chancellor was right to protest that this did not take account of the planned savings from welfare cuts and tax avoidance measures.

"But it is now almost two years since he announced his intention of cutting welfare spending by £12 billion," he said.

"Since then the main announcement has been the plan not to cut anything from the main pensioner benefits.

"We have been told about no more than £2 billion of the planned cuts to working-age benefits.

"And remember, apparently the 'plan' is to have those £12 billion in cuts in place by 2017/18. It is time we knew more about what they might actually involve."


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3001687/Osborne-seeks-Budget-election-boost.html#ixzz3UqvQ4ED2
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Challenged on the Today programme this morning, Osborne rejected the OBR's assessment on the grounds that it failed to take into account the £12bn of welfare cuts he has vowed to to make and the £5bn he hopes to raise by cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion (thus easing the squeeze on government departments). He said: "We want to take a more balanced approach and we would not put all the cuts in government departments, as the OBR forecast shows. We would also make savings in the welfare budget and take additional action against tax avoidance, tax evasion, aggressive tax planning. So we would have a more balanced approach."

But pressed on specifics, he gave no new details.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/what-are-welfare-cuts-osborne-hiding-until-after-election

lvader

Personally I don't think it's enough anyway, the current generation is behaving totally irresponsibly by loading future generations with debt. We are a morally corrupt society.

stator

lvader wrote: »

the previous generation is behaving totally irresponsibly by loading the current generations with debt.

fixed it

michaels

BobQ wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31962179

Osborne seems to causing some confusion in claiming that the post election cuts will be no more than we have endured in the past five years.

The claim is not supported by the OBR and seems to presume massive cuts in police, defence, tax avoidance and welfare.

Smoke and mirrors?

Had Labour presented such flimsy arguments they would be castigated by the right wing press. At least the Daily Mail had something to say about it......

I thought it was all because Osbourne for political reasons (and because the lib dems do not support them) is refusing to say where the welfare cuts are going to fall before the election so the OBR following its mandate to only consider announced govt policy is doing figures based on all the cuts being on departmental spending.

In other words nothing to see here.

Obviously the roller coaster thing is because during the campaign the Tories are going to announce huge increases in NHS spending later in the next parliament if they are (re) elected.

purch

BobQ wrote: »

Smoke and mirrors?

What do you expect ?

Gordon Brown used that tactic for 10 years, and he was by no means the first to do so.