Would you pay more tax to boost defence spending

[trainermush]

Obviously we are now in a more precarious position & defence spending has been underfunded for some time. RR had just said we need to spend more money & she will but without breaking her fiscal rules,

"So we will stick to our fiscal rules. But recognising the priority of defence spending in the world that we live in today means that we will have to make difficult choices so that we can spend that money that is needed to keep our country safe."

Mulling it over & even though I think I pay enough tax I would pay more each month towards this (cut back in other areas) as opposed to labour cutting back on something else. I guess thinking about my dc & other loved ones has changed my mind somewhat now things appear more bleak. What do others think?
Conscription of young people terrifies me even though my dc are too young.

yes

Why? It's about the only thing in the USA that is properly funded. They have 12 aircraft carriers. Russia has 1. Literally thousands of jets , tanks, missiles. While people die because they can't afford health care.

We're very dependent on a bit of that though. Hence the leaders trying to get some security guarantee in Ukraine from the US.

They want some air security and probably other.

The 8% savings will be redirected to higher priority areas within the defense budget.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-looks-8-defense-budget-cut-each-next-5-years-washington-post-reports-2025-02-19/

The Pentagon said on Wednesday it was directing military leaders to draw up a list of potential cuts totaling about $50 billion from the upcoming budget for fiscal year 2026 to be redirected into President Donald Trump's priorities for national defense.

So the defence budget is being cut by $50bn in order to reallocate money to the Fence Budget.

Robert Frost and his Mending Walls - such wokery.....!

That's ridiculous! This and previous government is a joke.

I think you've misunderstood, that's what the US are doing, not the UK (and I recall you're a big Trump fan)...

Ah yes thanks for clearing that up for me! 😂

Not anymore.

No because I struggle each month as it is since the cost of living crisis hit

https://unherd.com/2025/03/why-jd-vance-offends-us/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&utm_source=UnHerd+Today&utm_campaign=afb05e8479-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_03_06_09_52&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_79fd0df946-afb05e8479-72957977

Not sure if anyone else is still reading this thread as it has tailed off, but I thought this article from UnHerd cast a provocative look at Europeans' defence policies and attitudes. The comments too. I don't expect everyone to agree but it is a very different perspective.

I do not have room to manouver at present, as I am the sole earner in my family now due to some health issues, so I would rather RR gets the money from somewhere, if she can.
If I had some room, yes I would.
Buy I would rather put the taxes we have into sorting the NHS system, the roads, the council, the transport and so on in this country. And save on buroucracy and other bit, if we can.
Let her find where she can squeeze some and if she does not gather enough, then we will have to dig in our pockets. There is no other way. We need yo defend ourselves.
Has any of them said anything about the manufacturer of the weaoons? Because US cannot provide any. It will have to be a Europe only, european design, european software, made in Europe. Or in each country of Europe for themselves.
I am so angry with these men. All this money, 800 billions possibly, imagine how many surgeries, and blood tests, and MRI appointments, and roads, abd trains, and help to disable and ill people. How much research into new clean technologies, health therapies... we could get with that stupid money. But because of Putin + Trump, then they will be wasted on materials to kill others and, God forbides, we may actually use them.

RR needs to start being smarter and lose the politics of envy. We can't keep "taxing the rich" to solve the problems, nor can we go back to benefit bashing. We've had 2/3 decades of such "easy" but utterly useless policies being banded about. If she is any good, she needs to think of radical changes to the tax/benefits systems to cut the deficit and her "black hole".

I.e. how about finding ways to incentivise people to work, whether they're currently unemployed, disabled, early retired or part time. Instead of reducing their benefits and increasing their taxes to "punish" them for working, what about looking at the tax/benefit system so that people wanting to work, or to work more hours actually see the benefits of doing so, i.e. money in their pocket, rather than money lost to tax/nic and benefit cuts.

It's a crazy state of affairs when people can be worse off for doing an extra shift or taking a promotion, but at several different income levels, that's exactly what happens, due to a combination of tax/nic/student loan deductions from wages, added to loss of benefits due to higher income, loss of child benefit, loss of personal tax allowance, loss of free childcare, etc. Like I say, far to many "cliff edges" where you end up barely any better off or even worse off by working more hours/days, taking a better paid job etc.

The answer to the deficit and black hole is to get more people working and more working people working more, to get the economy moving and create growth. Farting around with taxing the same people more, or reducing their benefits just causes stagnation.

how about finding ways to incentivise people to work, whether they're currently unemployed, disabled, early retired or part time. Instead of reducing their benefits and increasing their taxes to "punish" them for working, what about looking at the tax/benefit system so that people wanting to work, or to work more hours actually see the benefits of doing so, i.e. money in their pocket, rather than money lost to tax/nic and benefit cuts.

Because a lot of people don’t want to work. Obviously some are severely disabled and can’t. But others would much rather lose out on a couple of hundred quid a month and not have to dedicate 40 hours a week to something often tedious or boring. Half of people polled said they can’t see themselves ever going back to work again (in the case of disability) and the advent of MH benefits make this worse - when have you ever known somebody ‘cured’ of a MH issue? Their treatment is expensive, and with often little results. They often have several diagnoses and keep developing new ones. I would be surprised if they could get 10% of people back to work without basically forcing them.

From what i ve seen of her, thats what she is planning to do, so 1m younger people as NEETs, this is ridiculous.

Getting over 55s back to work will be extremely difficult but those on sick rather than retired, can be done.

I'm as left wing as anyone but the Welfare state was not set up to allow people to chose unemployment instead of work.
So a young man i know was told You will go on the Work placement scheme run by a charity or lose benefits... what is wrong with that?
He'll stop being nocturnal, get into a work habit, take home many times more money and stop being a drain on the tax payer.... under the Tories, he was forgotten, just allowed to say he'd applied for x number of jobs etc and then ignored.

Reeves has not introduced taxes on working people, VAT, NI and Income Tax all remain the same, as has fuel duty, as far as i can see, its only at the higher 100k pa pay that tax issues become an issue.... but who allowed that to happen???

@Alexandra2001

"So a young man i know was told You will go on the Work placement scheme run by a charity or lose benefits... what is wrong with that? "

I agree with the principle but in reality that young man would be massively incentivised to apply to be long term sick with mental health / stress issues.

And logically he would indeed find it stressful not being nocturnal and having to go to work every day.

Like Alexandra I’m pretty left wing and I agree with her entirely. Nobody’s entitled to a stress free life funded by other people. The criteria for long term sickness benefits need to be tightened so it wouldn’t be possible for people to decide to claim them as an alternative to unemployment benefit.

Not left wing but also completely agree with @Alexandra2001 and @Blossomtoes. Second time today I have agreed with @Blossomtoes!

mmmmm but he hasn't, he has managed, with support, to break some bad habits, these aren't "normal" jobs, they are designed to help get people who struggle back to work, where they can hold down a job.

In his case, all he had to do was mention "Anxiety" and the Job Centre pretty much left him to his own devices, he wasn't even on sickness benefits, just unemployed, he'd apply for a few jobs, never get an interview, due to no work history (over 2 years on the dole) no transport... no relevant experience.

I mean who is going to employ this guy?

Many people stuck in this cycle of despair, are not happy being where they are, sickness/unemployment benefits pay about 400 per month, they may then get a further 300 towards rent (assuming they are single)
Min Wage will, net, pay well over double that.

Will it work for all? no but we cannot let 100s of 1000s of young people spend the next 50 or 60 years doing nothing at all.

Maybe we need to “force” them by cutting their benefits or introducing schemes to guarantee they’d be better off by working, even if it costs more short term if it means they can be productive members of society for years in the future rather than a drain. Ie it may cost more to get a nocturnal youngster into the workplace short term but then hopefully you get 30 years of productivity and tax out of them instead of subsidising a life of laziness and often crime out of boredom!