To think there is no more money?

[Rainbowsponge]

And Labour have admitted this.

So many threads saying X or Y needs to be ‘properly funded’ (even though most of the time our spending is actually in line with comparable countries), but no acknowledgment of the fact there’s no money to spend.

And when you bring it up, posters completely ignore you or accuse you of being Jacob Rees Mogg

Wouldn’t the quality of debate be improved if we stopped burying our heads in the sand?

I am happy to give them time to look at the books but pretty quickly, in my personal opinion, we are going to have to either borrow or pay more tax to help reinstate some of the services we rely on to help this country feel like it isn't on it's knees.
Spending on infrastructure which has been ignored for 30+ years, schools and hospitals physically need maintaining and they haven't, it is going to cost money but in the long term it is the right thing to do.
We are now going to pay the consequence of a lack of investment.
I don't think I can say there is an area of the country that functions well.

Do I know where we should start? No, but the health service is problematic, social care, schools, roads, parole service, prisons, courts, immigration.
All these things need investment.

The biggest lie the capatalists ever sold.

We are now going to pay the consequence of a lack of investment.

true

They absolutely should look at CGT. It shouldn't be a lower rate than earning money but, sadly, it doesn't raise that much compared to 1p on everyone's earnings.

I've been driving across the country today. It's really noticeable that most schools are either late victorian or those 50s style post war ones
There was also clearly a massive building programme of council houses postwar too.
The country was bankrupt by the war, so I assume it was paid for by borrowing?
It amazes me that we could basically build half the schools and most the social housing in such a short time span.
Even the lido in my town was built in the 30s to provide work in the depression.

Yet it's all crumbling away.

Have been listening to Gary for over a year now and he is the only person I have heard talking who makes much sense.

@Feelingstrange2 there may be less resistance to a 1p increase on your earnings if you feel the burden is being spread more equally though.

You can either raise taxes or borrow money as a government (which accrues over time and if your debt gets too high you can end up in a situation where you need to borrow ever more to maintain spending and pay debt whilst the cost of borrowing goes up because you look increasingly risky) . You can’t just randomly fiddle with interest rates, a balance has to be struck to prevent runaway inflation. I would say we have to manage with constrained options.

Agreed.

There is money in the NHS pot to pay agency workers and their owners billions of pounds of tax payers money each year, if they gave this to permanent staff and made it an attractive place to work they could cut this budget by ££. My team alone is staffed by around 50% agency workers who are payed far more than me yet alone the cut the agency themselves get. My bosses are always trying to cut back on agency but our sickness levels are too high (staff off with work related stress) and so the cycle continues. After 27 years in the NHS you end up seeing it all and it really is depressing that nothing ever really changes.

If you are a government you can always get more money.

It's question of whether it's worth the consequences.

Governments are not like households.

They have the normal ways of getting money that are like households - get more income (taxes), borrow more money or spend less. But because they are governments they can also just print money and use it,

Obviously this has consequences.

What everyone? Or just those already stretched and stressed? What about those who contribute nothing but take everything?
And no not those who can't do, just those who won't.

Our economy is in a mess, that is true OP. But you really do not understand economics.

I will happily say I’m wrong if this action recovers even half of what Rachel Reeves is touting. But if anything is raised I doubt it’ll be more than £25.

This is a complete gimmick. It’s a giant political hoax.

The idea that they’ll prosecute loads of people for fraud at all is laughable, and even more laughable that they could do it within 15 years let alone before the next election. And even then it wouldn’t raise any money.

As for wasteful contracts, the government cannot unwind contracts and make people pay back lawfully contracted payments. That’s not how it works.

As for ‘but there was money for covid’ - of course there was: it was a global, killer disease and we had to pay for equipment and to give people money to live on. But the borrowing we had to take on is why we’re up shit creek now.

I understand it isn’t the same as ‘we have £5, and therefore only £5 to spend’. I understand it isn’t a household budget. I understand all countries are effectively in debt and borrow, this is normal and to be expected. And so on.

And I think people got away with pinning our circumstances on a ‘lack of will’ or ‘corruption’ when the Tories were at the helm, but now Labour is we can’t kid ourselves any more.

I’m hopefully there will be an improvement of sorts in the next 5 years or so, but the days of us being a very wealthy country are long gone.

Midnight gets it.

Agreed

Its not realistic to have an expansive state benefits system, with an increasingly dwindling pool of people funding it.

But how do you square that with an ageing population & more demand on the NHS and social care?

I, for one, am not willing to pay more tax unless forced. I'm stressed to fuck as it is funding me and two children, childcare, a mortgage in the SE. I'm an above average earner (£70k but look after us all). I just can't.

@Notmycircusnotmyotter but would you feel the same if you saw real improvements in education etc?

The housing market has really fucked the economy & created so much inequality particularly for younger generations

It’s as if they have adopted the toddler dinner and pudding tummy approach ! One is strictly limited the other can stretch infinitely !

Bring in a system that stops people that aren't entitled to any of it, receiving it. And ship them home. Stop giving billions in foreign aid. Pretty simple

Who knows.

62p out of every £1 of council funding goes on social care and SEN.

Social housing only gets 4p.

Bring in a system that stops people that aren't entitled to any of it, receiving it. And ship them home. Stop giving billions in foreign aid. Pretty simple

it’s not as simple as the Daily Mail says 🙄

@LadyCrumpet

...And ship them home....

That ship sailed a long time ago.
The drain on the public purse will just get worse and worse.