AIBU to want spending cuts rather than more tax rises?

[PinkFruitbat]

The foundations are being laid for more tax rises in the October Budget.

https://www.ft.com/content/6d43b599-3d7c-471c-88c2-0f056475a840?syn-25a6b1a6=1

AIBU to ask for savings in spending to help balance the budget rather than more taxes.

With welfare spending at nearly £1bn each day, when is enough, enough?

Where do you suggest cutting money because most public services have already been depleted?

Exactly this. Where do you suggest OP?

So what is the highest tax take for years being spent on now?

How will taking any more tax help?

Kemi Badenoch has proposed and costed:

£4bn annually through housing benefit reforms (why on earth should benefit claimants get to live wherever they like? All the rest of us have to live in an area we can afford )

£3.1bn annually from reimposing the two-child benefit cap.

£1bn annually by ending VAT exemptions for motability vehicles.

And £200m per year by scrapping Labour’s deal to give away the Chagos Islands.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/615917bc8ad0e86a

Sounds like a good start!

Yes, a good start there from KB

Everything has been cut to the bone, which is why everyone struggles to get doctors appointments, can wait hours for an ambulance or to be seen in A and E, and the police won't come out. I would much rather pay more tax and see an improvement in our services.

MN is full of people that want to pay more tax, they could just pay more. Probably all like Lineker.

Its going to have to be both. If outside intervention happened from the IMF it would be both.

Which public services do you want to get rid of then?

Good to see the Conservative Party are such an irrelevance now that they are reduced to typing their Party Political Broadcasts on Mumsnet.

When Portugal had its EU bailout, all public sector workers had their salaries reduced from 14 months a year (double pay in August for summer and December for Christmas was the norm) to 13, a reduction which filtered out to the private sector and still stands to this day.

Is this the sort of thing you're talking about? Salami-slicing public service budgets and asking public sector managers to find the savings hasn't worked for years. If, instead, every individual who received actual cash direct from the state - public sector workers, pensioners, benefits claimants (including landlords) - was simply told they're having a 5% haircut with no ifs or buts, that might work. And it would certainly do away with the attitude that pain should be borne by someone else.

Complete cut to foreign aid.

25% cut to the civil service.

25% cut to all welfare.

Reinstate a child benefit cap (3 children).

Mandatory in person PiP review for all claimants.

Scrap triple lock, winter fuel allowance, free TV licence, free bus passes for the elderly.

Motability only for UK manufactured cars, basic models only.

Cut House of Lords down from 1000 to say 200.

I don't necessarily want tax cuts, but I would like to see it not increase, and to see the current tax take used more universally on services which benefit everyone - nhs, education, emergency services etc, rather than giving huge amounts to a select few. A family I work with have a care package for their child worth over £1 million a year - it could be half this is 1 parent supported with their child's care, but both refuse and they barely see her. Another has 10 children, of which 3 need 1 to 1 carers, and 3 houses needed to be knocked into 1 to accommodate their needs.

I think we need to do both. Increase taxes to fund public services properly and try to cut spending- there is definitely waste, and benefit fraud out there but I imagine funding it is easier said than done.

Highest tax take as a proportion of GDP since the late 1940s, when we were rebuilding after the devastation of WW2.

Most benefit claimants don't get housing benefit now. My son is one of the few new claimants that does ( because he is in supported living) and he didn't get to choose where he lives.

5% is easy to find without making any meaningful change.

We need to shake the tree hard to dislodge some of the waste.

25% minimum budget cuts.

Cutting welfare by 25% would have huge knock on costs to health and social care and the wider economy as people on benefits tend to spend all their money rather than hoard it.

I’d be more than willing to pay more tax, if it was spent properly. I don’t wish to voluntarily do this as it isn’t being used wisely at the moment.

Should healthcare be overhauled and the public transport system revamped to work effectively, I’d be very pleased to pay more into the system.

Look at Nordic countries. Extremely high tax rates but equally extremely high levels of satisfaction in the public. They pay more but their services work! That’s what (sensible) people want

If you cut the money going into people's pockets you cut their ability to spend. If you cut people's ability to spend you are reducing the economy overall. That affects how much tax you take which has the knock on effect of reducing the effectiveness of the actions you take to reduce spending. It also has other effects which also increase costs down the line for example spending on health issues. Yes increasing tax also has the same effects. Did we not learn anything from the Tories about Austerity causing more damage than it helps.

The only way you can make a meaningful dent in the welfare budget is by looking at the state pension. Everyone who wants to "cut the welfare bill" finds this out at some point.

That's because it's included in their universal credit payment. A lot of people still call it housing benefit rather than housing element.

Oh fgs. Does everyone have to be a Labour voter on here?

How would this interact with minimum wage. Large part of the public sector is wages. If you cut them by 25% there will be a lot of people dropping below minimum wage for essential jobs?

Agree. But I think it needs to come from a place of encouraging work. We work quite closely with the job centre on recruitment and it’s too easy to get away with only working 20 hours a week.