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?

I get that illegal migrants and adult social care are huge costs, but where is the rest of it truly going?

Are illegal migrants and social care costs roughly the same?

This is where a lot of the money is going/has gone:

• Debt repayments
• Brexit. The country is £100 billion pounds worse off a year since Brexit
• Covid. Costs of Covid, furlough etc
• Austerity. 10 years of austerity has led to lots of costs eg fixing things
• Benefits. Growing welfare bill
• Growing send, social care bill
• Pensions - aging population, triple lock
• Illegal immigrants eg £15 billion on hotels
• Increased need for defence
• Ukraine war - increased energy costs
• 2008 financial crash
• Net Zero costs

Brexit and austerity both have nothing to do with it. The latter doesn't even exist.

Austerity just means "The government isn't spending as much as I think they should be, therefore austerity."

Find Gary's Economics on YouTube. He's got a handle on it.

Brexit is an ongoing productivity and trade cost as it has introduced a huge amount of trade friction that wasn't there before.

Enviroment

People really have not cared that 50 million, has been going, on something, 100 million on something else etc etc etc
If it is supposed to "stop the world getting hotter", well who cares, say most people.

Now they have to pay.

Austerity has led to greater costs. For example, the deferred maintenance of highways has led to greater costs mending the roads now and cuts to flood defences eg dredging have led to greater flood costs. In many instances austerity was a false economy so it does have something to do with it. Brexit is costing us 100 billion a year - so that has something to do with it too.

Inefficiency in public services has a lot to do with it!
Partly because it’s under funded, partly because bits have funds and float around trying to spending them!

if the public services had to be self funding like a commercial enterprise they’d sharpen up their practices and behaviours!!

and to be very clear, I do not mean the privatisation of public services with someone pocketing a load of profit and delivering the same service at more cost to the tax payer, I mean public services should look at what they’re actually doing and what things are actually costing!

Public services just don’t seem to know how to function efficiently.

Well just 3 ridiculous ways in which it’s being spent is subsidising the food and bar bills in parliament, paying the members of the Lords £300 each a day to turn up even if they only stay a few minutes, and being used by councils at the cost of £11,000 (?) to have to take ‘patriotic’ flags that have recently been put up back down from flag posts before they can put Christmas decorations up

and whilst for example, governments feel the interests of their donors and their bar and fancy lunch bills being subsidised are more important than the needs, health, housing and welfare of most of the rest of the country nothing will change

Getting Amazon and other big businesses to pay their fair share of tax would bring more money in meaning those vital services would have more spent on them

But it would take large tax rises for the more well off individuals and businesses to bring much more money in too to spend on services which is always shied away from

because sadly, that just doesn’t win votes or favours from big businesses and from rich donors

No health and pensions are recorded separately.

Indeed they are, but they are still a big part of public spending and a huge burden on the taxpayer.

And actually the challenges of tne late 80's are still impacting.

This is a great analysis on the costs side but there are also issues on the revenue side, such as:

Slow growth since 2008 has meant tax revenues are increasingly lagging government spending.
Productivity crashed in 2008 and has not recovered.
We trashed our main export markets in 2016.
People cutting back on spending due to cost of living - reduces business revenues, reduces VAT.
Businesses cutting back on investment due to uncertainty.
Population is ageing and older people spend less.

What do you mean, where all the money is going? I hear people harping on about 'my taxes. I pay taxes'. Most don't even pay for themselves, never mind 'where it is going'. One child in a state school costs up to £18K pa - I don't know a single family with 2 children who would pay £36K in taxes just to cover state schooling of their little darlings. One C-section on the NHS and post-operative cost - I dread to think how much it is, but I doubt that most people cover the cost of their NHS treatments just for themselves, never mind anything else.

Brexit is costing the country £100bn a year in lost income. It's the elephant in the room that no one dares talk about because the Brexit mob are still totally deluded.

I'd like to find out more about this. Do you have a link to the source?

Well Michel Mone and her husband are sat on £100m of our money plus the £37 million of tax their company forgot to pay, presumably that was their intention take as much as possible then go bust, how many fast track crooks are in the same position. We did at least get the fines from Johnson and Sunak for partying while the rest of us were locked down

This government, this life in the UK is now a shit show. So disgusted by anyone dim enough to vote Labour, so smug, so proud of themselves, I was on here in the run up to the election and the truly vile, aggressive, bitter way you shot down anybody willing to go up against your nasty bullying and tell you how shit Labour would be - will always remain with me. SHAME ON YOU ALL. My life, as a parent of three, two SEN, has got so much worse and is about to sink into utter despair and actual complete pure misery after the budget. Taxing us all to the hilt, grabbing more of our hard earned and desperately needed money to supposedly “SPEND” on our “behalf”. Oh fucking get real. Let people - at such a hugely miserable time in most lives, hang onto their own pennies. Maybe spend it? Put it back into other businesses, move house finally, take that holiday, enjoy LIFE AND LIVING. But no.

Welfare is not being cut. The government could not even get it's own backbenchers to push through reforms. The basic rate of UC is going to be increasing way above inflation over the next few years. The two child cap for UC is likely to be lifted bringing thousands more into being able to claim UC and hugely increasing UC amounts for those already on it who have only been getting it for two kids but have more. the increase will be enormous.

Labour gave the NHS a big funding boost in last year's budget, plus money for train drivers, Junior doctors all mounts up. On top of that as Labour borrowed yet more money in last budget the cost of interest on repayment is massive. They also announced UC increase above inflation and tripl lock was more money spent. Spending has got to be reduced so the government can start to pay down the national debt. ATM lending to the UK is expensive as the world knows we are not a good lending bet. Also do not forget the illegal immigrants have to be housed in 4* hotels and paid when they commit crimes and agree to go back to country of origin.

Massive inefficiencies don't help, e.g social services and education being run at county council level and local police forces means that you have to replicate bureaucracy many times over across the country. Once social services have fulfilled those statutory duties, especially for an aging population, there is very little left for anything else, nothing gets spent on upkeep of local towns e.g pavements, parks, town centres and everywhere just looks more and more downtrodden. I grew up in the UK and go back every couple of years and the decline is so noticeable over the last 15 years.
Where I live in Australia, the state government looks after policing, education and health therefore would have one of these departments per state, national government looks after social and aged care and the local council looks after local roads, parks, bin collection, pavements etc and so there is money to keep your local area looking really good.

UK Government annual spending breaks down like this - total spend is c£880bn

That is public information though to be fair, you can’t expect them to recite everything that’s already publicly available every time they make a speach.

Giving £50 billion to Europe and continually wasting lots on foreign aid does not help.
That wasted money could be used here and make a difference rather than being burnt

Shame Cameron et al didn’t put that on the side of a bus…