All-round Budget thread

adamschic, here is the BBC budget calculator. Not sure how useful it is.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12773565

I too felt nauseous at the sight of their smug fizogs Iggly especially Osborne when he sat down after delivering his pathetic little bit of homework and his eyes literally SWIVELLED in pleasure and insanity as he soaked up the fake adulation from his lot. Quite amazing expression.

Has anyone got a link or point me in the direction of a budget calculator, pls.

Am I supposed to be getting excited about the increase in personal allowances when Gideon has (sneakily) switched the inflation from RPI to the lower CPI rate? So in real terms we'll pay more taxes? At least have the balls to be honest Gideon.

I watched the budget yesterday and nearly vomited at the look of smug across both sides of the debate.

According to the calculator in the DT, dh will be paying £80 more in income tax, but £360 more in NI pa, so about £460 down overall before losing the cb. Not as bad as I had thought, so am grateful for small mercies, as he has a two year pay freeze.

The tax allowance is rising in April by £1000 but Ni is going up by 1% to 12 % so a lot of people will find that they are paying quite a bit more tax with a different label?

The lower paid are also a huge part of the infastructure as we pay tax on every penny we earn. We are neither 'benefit scroungers' or 'tax dodgers' (by that I include thousands of tradesmen and the like that only declare a fraction of their income).

'If the rich and the squeezed middle weren't generating taxes the poor would starve to death.'

If it wasn't for the people on poor wages, the rich would never get rich. We are all one unit, part of one system. Without those at the bottom providing services for cheap, the rich wouldn't be able to compete.

We need business friendly policies. But we need moral, ethical businesses that treat employees well and pay a fair wage. We need to remove the risk of moral hazard, and regulate to stop sharks getting off scot-free.

Yes there isn't much difference between them. I think the others are worse, I think the others are false prophets. We can only hope for the best. I support the demonstrations, because they are a demonstration that the people need help. I hope they will be listened to.

We don't have a party who will make people work for benefits. Nor do we have a party who will make work pay - the proposed plans for that won't work. There is not much difference between the various parties.

I do think asd it takes a while for benefits to come through which is when food parcels can help people should try now, those of us in work, if at all possible to put aside money in case at some stage they are in difficult circumstances so they can buy emergency food even if they can only achieve that by just drinking tap water as I do and not drinking and smoking.

If the rich and the squeezed middle weren't generating taxes the poor would starve to death.

As you know I'm no fan of New Labour. But you also know the tories are equally mired in hypocrisy, spin, smoke, mirrors and mendacity. Mainstream parties are all in thrall to big business. That fact's not gonna go away and this budget is a mere compounding of that fact.

But that article is nothing new. Of course there are more unemployed in Labour areas than Tory areas, because the cuts will always fall disproportionately on the poor, on those "too small to count". But I don't believe Labour. It was under their watch that it happened. Caroline Flint told the unemployed "work or lose your homes". Many people put their faith in Labour, only to be disappointed again and again. Labour do lots of acting, lots of spoting, lots of charging at windwills, but the result is always the same. Put down your false messiahs, close up your Leninologies, open up your Daily Mails.

leninology.blogspot.com/2011/03/working-class-tory-is-something-to.html

Just for you claig. Now spote away.

I think "spote" should be included in the mn Politics vocabulary on a regular basis. Is it also a noun? As in "Fine spote there claig" or "I loved your spote, you spoke for me too".

glasnost, I have always thought that, as has that great newspaper of the people, the Daily Mail.

This is what is happening in this country. 60,000 people relying on food banks to survive. They aren't thick, they aren't feckless, they are the backbone of this country. You won't hear much about it on the media, because they are "too small to count", instead you'll hear about Lord this and Lord that, and Sir this and Sir that. These people are suffering the result of what has been inflicted on them by the banksters and the bigwigs, the "people who worked hard and did well".

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369002/Rents-waived-food-parcels-How-Okehampton-Devon-pull-UK-recession.html

Even though spote could be a new verb.

Even "spouting" like a socialist.

Wow claig you're spoting like a socialist! Whence the Damascene conversion? Welcome to the fold.

The government will get its money back, but the poor of Atlanta won't. It won't go back to the people, and in the meantime it is too late, many people will have already been wiped out, when it wasn't necessary at all.

No one is jealous of people who work hard, no one is envious of them. No one is jealous of nurses who work two shifts, no one is jealous of people who put in extra. But the Bible talks of sin, there are some banksters and gangsters and thieves. They are immoral, they are not happy, and they bring misery to millions.

But the tax payer is going to get it's money back with knobs on for the investment in the banks. It wasn't cash handed as a gift.

Anyway the budget is not massively radical and most of it was already predicted or even set 12 months ago so no big shocks or changes there.

Immorality? Some people work hard and do well. That shouldbn't be cause for jealously. If you turn to your bible or other religious works they would say envy is a sin. The rich thankfully in the West tend to look after the poor reasonably well, better than in many countries which is why people flock here. Most of us do support the UK welfare state although we might tweak it a bit. There is nothing immoral about some people having more than others. Having more doesn't equal happiness.

Those poor people were even still making payments on their homes, they just got over-stretched as the rates went up. But the banks didn't help them, they didn't extend their loans, they didn't cut them any slack. The government (the people) bailed out the banks, but the banks didn't bail out the people. They cut them loose and said they were to blame. Obama bailed out banks with billions and billions because they were "too big to fail", but he never bailed out the poor people of Atlanta, which would have cost peanuts, because they are "too small to count", they are described as thick and feckless, so they deserve everything they get.

i just think it's a bit much that we've handed the country over to the care of a bunch of rich kids, ex-Bullingdon club members, who don't have an ounce of reality in their experience.

Would you rather hand over running the country to a bunch of dole sponging, Jezza Kyle types? They have a lot of experience of "reality" don't they?

But their mortgages are peanuts in the grand scheme of things. The billions and billions pumped in to save the banks are nothing to do with these mortgages. Just the bombing of Libya could pay for all their mortgages ten times over.

Those poor people aren't feckless, that's what the media is telling you. Spend 24 hours with those poor people in Atlanta and you will see it is all a lie. While those people work 12 hour jobs on low pay, the fat cats drink champagne, smoke cigars, and eat the fat of the hog. Who are the truly feckless? Who are the truly immoral? Who really bears the blame?