Suggestions for Osborne's July budget

mwpt

Tromking wrote: »

I'm not right leaning, but I think he was trying to highlight the unsustainable nature of those figures.
It was intimated by Andrew Neil on the daily politics today that due to the lack of a Labour leader at the moment, Osborne is rumoured to favour going big time on welfare cuts in next months budget. Catch the Labour front bench at their weakest as it were.

Yup, understood.

lisyloo

It also makes sense to make potentially risky or unpopular decisions at the beginning of the term, so they have years to recover.

mwpt

caronoel wrote: »

Anyone have anything else he could do to plug the deficit?

Raise taxes (Nordic model)

caronoel

mwpt wrote: »

Raise taxes (Nordic model)

If we wanted that, we would have elected Comrade Milliband as PM.

Thankfully, we didnt

mwpt

caronoel wrote: »

If we wanted that, we would have elected Comrade Milliband as PM.

Thankfully, we didnt

I don't believe in a bloated state and I believe in the right incentives being set for productivity (encourage work). But the cycle we are in at the moment has wealth concentration in the hands of fewer people, income inequality, due to efficiency and technology. This is a good thing, I believe in progress and everyone becoming better off. But it also means rethinking how society works and how we cope with this. I don't think spending cuts are going to be enough to eliminate the deficit (pensions and health spending is only going to increase). And I don't believe in eternal borrowing and more debt for our kids to pay. That kind of only leaves the option of taxation.

michaels

Tromking wrote: »

A big steer on Osborne's thoughts on this was made at PMQ's today. He stated that the UK represented 1% of the worlds population, 4% of the worlds economic activity and 7% of the worlds welfare payments!

Whereas I am slightly to the right and think this is the sort of meaningless twaddle that ony a SPAD would expect to get away with; our demographics in terms of elderly dependents are very different from most emerging economies so we should expect to have a higher welfare bill.

Tromking

michaels wrote: »

Whereas I am slightly to the right and think this is the sort of meaningless twaddle that ony a SPAD would expect to get away with; our demographics in terms of elderly dependents are very different from most emerging economies so we should expect to have a higher welfare bill.

I never made the comparison with emerging economies, someone else did.
Welfare spending as a % of GDP in 2013.
France - 33%
Italy 28.4%
Spain 27.4%
Germany - 26.2%
UK - 23.8%
It still seem high for the UK as we (I think!) have a state pension that is low in comparison with most other similiar EU countries and have not been battling with double figure rates of unemployment as some countries have been.

chewmylegoff

mwpt wrote: »

Raise taxes (Nordic model)

They will find this difficult having made a manifesto pledge not to increase NI, income tax or VAT for the period of this parliament.

mwpt

chewmylegoff wrote: »

They will find this difficult having made a manifesto pledge not to increase NI, income tax or VAT for the period of this parliament.

Agreed. I'm just stating what I think the reality is. Without tax rises, we won't have a balanced budget come the end of the tories term imo. Hopefully I'm wrong.

[Deleted User]

Well if the right wingeers here (or righty-winge-ers... copyright WildRover 2015) are content to make the poor and powerless pay even more heavily for something they did not cause, here's a couple more...

Double the employers' NI on any employer paying staff wages that require taxpayer support. ...

No NI holidays or concessions for employers of over 15 fte employees paying less than the "living wage".
(STOP THIS PUBLIC SUBSIDY OF PRIVATE PROFIT)

Fine the parents of under 16s who get piercings or tattoos 1000 quid for being @rseholes.

Instigate a 5 quid admission fee for anyone entering a place of worship and keep the NHS admission free.

More advice will follow after some more "thinking juice". The financial solution is clearly more than a 2 pint problem. ...

WR