Where is the money going?!

[WilderHawthorn]

All we seem to hear at the moment is that spending needs to be cut and tax increased. I’m a middle earner (not higher rate tax) and don’t mind paying my fair share. But where is the money actually going?

welfare is being cut
education is on its knees
the NHS is a shambles
roads are atrocious
infrastructure generally seems poor
public transport is useless
social services are appallingly overstretched
the £ is at a terrible rate internationally
food inflation is huge

I get that illegal migrants and adult social care are huge costs, but where is the rest of it truly going? I cannot fathom the situation we’re in, is it truly to service the economic debt from Covid?

Interest rates have increased for the government too. Loan repayments have increased.

I watched question time last night and how are we supposed to understand any of it? All they do is argue that the other party did a worse job than them in every area! I want to be interested in politics and I’m not an uneducated person but they don’t actually talk about what has gone wrong and how it can be fixed. I think that’s why people just act passive about it all and occasionally get their knickers in a twist about whatever is being fed to us in the news. I don’t even know what to do to gain a better understanding and I think that’s how politicians like it.

Covid,
brexit,
to many mp’s
immigrant's,
benefits bill
nhs,
35% of the population don’t pay any tax,
interest payments,
to many people are now living in this Country,

In essence low confidence in the government's plans for the British economy has increased borrowing rates, so 81% of money borrowed by the government goes on servicing the interest on existing debt. They could cut spending enormously without hitting those who need it most. Rachel Reeves said she was willing to take tough decisions. So far, it looks like she's only willing to pick low hanging fruit by taxing taxpayers even more. We already have the highest aggregate tax in our history. This backwards thinking is shrinking the economy and will put ever more strain on taxpayers. My husband's business gets all its revenue from mainland Europe and it is becoming too expensive to operate from here (nothing to do with Brexit). He could move there tomorrow and he is sorely tempted. I don't much want to. My parents are here. My children are teenagers. It would be quite an upheaval. But its hard to say no when he earns more than I do and moving would allow him to employ two extra members of staff and still be better off.

Older and sicker population
costs of everything is going up, public services have to pay for increased NI and electricity bills and all their general supplies

Pensions (both state and government)

Healthcare (ageing population)

Welfare (PIP, UC, SEN provision - rising numbers of people not working / high cost of housing etc)

Interest payments

Any money raised in this budget won’t improve services for most of us - it all just goes into this black hole of growing costs which no one is willing to tackle.

The givernment did borrow a lot during Covid, both for the furlough scheme and for the nhs. The nhs took on many many more people during Covid.

What went wrong is largely covid and Brexit.

unfixable.

Lots of covid debt to rollover.

One reason reason why the IMF won't help us is that France might be in need of a bailout before Britain. Brexit has nothing to do with it.

Children’s social services, education, police, army, rubbish collections, public open spaces etc.

Huge benefits bill because large corporates have been allowed to grossly underpay a living wage to people that without a welfare state no one would work, why would you if you couldn’t afford to eat or house yourselves.

Not forgetting that we never recovered from the 2008 crash. The government took on a lot of the debt with all the bank bailouts, but they can't service it, so now it's the taxpayer's turn. Hence we're all getting shafted regardless of finances.

35% of the population don’t pay any tax,

This is the second thread on which I've seen this misinformation.
It may be true that 35% of the population don't pay income tax - although as the state pension increases while the standard tax allowance remains the same I suspect that figure is now lower than that (I think 35% is from last year) and will continue to decrease. Those who fall into that 35% figure will be mainly the very poorest who's income is below their tax allowance (e.g those living purely on state pension or PIP) and possibly the very richest who don't actually work but live off of an inheritance or have financial advisors who wangle things so that they can avoid paying it.

But even those who don't pay income tax will be paying VAT on their everyday shopping and energy bills,.fuel duty on petrol, most likey council tax etc etc.
Many of them will most likely be seeing more of their expenditure going on tax as a proportion of what they have to spend than those who are paying income tax.

There will be very few adults in this country who don't pay any tax at all.

Over 100 billion pounds on servicing debt.

1. Paying interest on our debt. Which has risen substantially
2. cost of fixing things that suffered 10+ years of neglect under austerity is more expensive.
3. growing welfare bill because wages are not enough to live on and there’s a growing number of people who have been deemed too sick to work at all. once you are in this bracket why would you risk taking a job that will not be nearly as secure should you relapse etc?
4. SEND and adult social care which takes up 66% of local govt spending.

The MPs are giving it to their mates & pocketing the change. Also pensioners are a massive drain I think attendance allowance & state pension should be means tested.

Around two thirds (66%) of government spending goes on public services (NHS, schools, prisons).

Around a quarter (25%) goes on social security and welfare, mostly pensions (pensioners receive about 55% of the total welfare bill).

Around 6-8% goes towards servicing govt debt.

Around 3-5% goes into investment.

I know a lot of people like to bang on about immigrants and DEI etc, but the truth is that kind of thing is an absolute drop in the ocean.

There is not a huge amount to cut.

I don't think there's a salary large enough that could tempt me to do the chancellor's (any chancellor's) job in the current climate.

This is why I loathe politicians. If RR stood up in front of the people and said, the government owes ‘x’ and it costs us ‘y’ per year. Health and social care costs ‘z’, this is what we’re left to play with to cover everything else. Instead, insults are thrown around, other parties blamed and Joe Public continue to suffer from austerity and tax increases

Here is a breakdown on public spending. "Ilegal immigrants is a tiny part and comes out of what used to be our overseas aid" What does the government spend money on? | Institute for Fiscal Studies

All of the things PPs have mentioned plus:

Don't forget HS2 - millions and millions (billions?) wasted on that and it's never really going to happen. Imagine if all that money had been diverted into the COVID maw. Things might not be so dire now.

And also, corruption: throughout 'austerity' the tories collected taxes (which increased b/c they didn't increase the personal allowance) whilst simultaneoustly cutting funding for pretty much everything. Where is all that money now? Or should we ask: in whose pockets? (I'll be sitting in the hot sun, living off my trust fund ... ) We were all distracted by those stories about MPs' duck houses and extra flats but they were still robbing us blind.

Broadly we have an ageing population so benefits and healthcare costs are rising. Brexit and covid drove a coach and horses through our productivity and increased public debt.

With respect, do you think the average person on the street would pay attention to that or believe it?

The (quite boring, un-sensationalised, cold hard facts version) information on the govts finances is freely available on the device everyone has in their pockets or in the palm of their hand.

People don't look because they're not interested, because they don't understand it, or because they're unwilling to.

Its why papers can get away with headlines like "trans assistance dogs for immigrants cost £150m a year, and YOU'RE paying for it!!" - outrage and ignorance is a powerful combination that sells.

Numbers and govt finances are boring and complex. Important, but boring and complex.

Too many MPs? That’s possible but they don’t earn that much

And the financial crash & the Ukraine invasion. And austerity

Austerity did inflict deep, long term wounds on public services that is true, particularly local authority services.