All-round Budget thread

[longfingernails]

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a) See my previous answer. Just because everyone is borrowing and up to their eyeballs in debt, doesn't mean we should be. The US are screwed. They just don't realise it yet. Just wait. When the day dawns on them that they cannot carry on with their national debt either and finally make the cuts, the knock on effects I think will cause another recession.

b) After WW2, the UK was screwed. Understandably so. After all, there was a huge war. That debt came down but for the last 30 years or so, we've happily lived in debt on the understanding that economic growth would allow us to pay off the debt and we were merely "investing". Except that growth was never enough, since we just spent more each time we grew. Just in the same way each year I might take out a loan because I expect a payrise the next year.

c) That's your opinion. You may be right, you may be wrong. Plenty of "economists" also think the cuts have been absolutely necessary.

d) There are only two ways to reduce a deficit. Raise taxes, reduce spending. The current coalition are doing both. I'd be interested to see where you pluck the £120billion for tax evasion/avoidance from. And that's before considering the likes of HSBC would relocate taking ALL their tax income with them. It does neatly mean they are no longer avoiding tax.......

e) Actually on this one I agree with you. Not 100% sure of your figures but I agree that in the current climate, it's something we should scrap.

aliceliddell: I wish you well on the march. But wasn't it the last government that brought in ESA and the ATOS checks? I didn't realise that they were introduced by Cameron and Clegg?

ttosca - are you actually insane? Are you seriously suggesting that the US isn't making tough cuts? Do you know anything about the benefit system/unemployment in the US?

Before you all start yelling "nasty idealogy-based Tories" , why don't you actually look at some numbers and start asking why the debt-interest payment is now nearly as much as is being spent on the NHS. Oh... and that's at a low interest rate which is going to be reset. And that's the interest on the current debt - we're not even looking at the deficit yet.

In layman's terms, you are spending nearly as much on your creditcard interest as you do on the food budget and Barclaycard just sent a letter saying your APR is going from 9% to 29%. Still, at least your Louis Vuitton is pretty. You're going to have to borrow a tenner from your dodgy cousin though because you can't pay the bills.

It wasn't the nasty Tories who got rid of the 10% tax band, as I recall.

But it was the nasty tories who got rid of childbenefit and tax credits for the better off and introduced the pupil premium for poor kids.

They sho are making the rich richer and the poor poorer, hey!

I read the immigrant comment as suggesting that if hard working non Brits can find work then why can't hard working Brits? Suggestion being maybe they don't want those jobs ? Just my interpretation.

cakeretention You wrote: I wish you well on the march. But wasn't it the last government that brought in ESA and the ATOS checks?

What the hell has the last government (yawn) got to do with the March today? Who's protesting the savage cuts aren't all automatically supporters of the last government (yawn). New Labour is Tory lite. Yeah? Goddit? They're all birds of a feather lining the same nests. New Labour would have carried out the same cuts just SLOWER. Labour are not in any way leftwing. Labour are still nominally tied to the trade unions but that is just that: nominal.

But we're not borrowing from our dodgy cousins are we? We're still bailing out the rest of the neighbourhood to the tune of billions.

There is money, how the tories choose to spend it is, of course, based upon their ideology.

Not a lot has changed. There is still a finite pot of money and tough decisions to be made, but let's not pretend that the government have no choice.

We can certanily have a lot more cuts. All that money wasted on overseas development and plenty else besides.

Gordon Brown did pay back the last of the WWII debt we owed and I remember fondly the days when the then Mrs Thatcher was paying back the national debt.

If we can get Britain competing again then we might get the economy moving. I'm not sure if the lower corporation tax and change in rules on overseas earnings will mean companies like WPP who moved to Ireland will move back but we'll see. What I am sure business wants most is certainty and many many fewer changes in tax law and policy.

Yes we could start by cutting MPs expenses, instead of increasing them to the tune of 2.5k per child.

lily, what like introducing 'family railcards' to MP's instead?

I'd do away with the whole second home business. I'd pay the rent on a local authority home (equivalent) within their constituency. They could furnish the bugger themselves out of their wages.

Yes, to a railcard.

I'd change the hours of parliament so they could get home and sleep in their own beds at night.

If an overnighter was absolutely necessary, there's always the Premier Inn or similar. I'd allow that. And £20 for dinner.

Under those rules, I'm not sure the tory party would exist anymore though....

Just by realising that everybody is finding it hard. When they spout 'there's no money' whilst cutting vital services to everybody else, how can they suddenly find a few extra millions to up their own expenses? Makes me sick!

wubbkybubbly: I'd do away withbsecond homes too. All MPs would be expected to have their main home in their constituency. A Govt Dept (I recommend MoD) rents or buys maximum 2bed flat and gives a standard set of furnishings and flat rate allowance for bills. This would be like the regime for Armed Forces personnel: maintenance covered separately, additional furnishings and consumption at MPs own expense.

Official entertaining and travel - same regime as FCO - local constituency scrutineers.

Office expenses - all staff to be employed by local constituency offices after ooen competition. An official imprest account opened for each MP, scrutinised both in constituency and centrally.

Penalty for errors in expenses, even those made in error, to be similar to those demanded of other public servants (ie immediate suspension, disciplinary, loss of honours, loss of position, consequent loss of pension). Public allowed to take action against MP for "loss of representation" during this time.

wb, the expenses for MPs are something which the left need not the right. If you've made your fortune you don't need an MP salary or expenses at all in some cases. It may well be that we would be better with only people over 40 who have made it financially in Parliament or those paid by unions of course. You might get better more experienced people with business experience rather than career politicians. So that solution would be no pay o r expenses for MPs but I think the nation decided that payment meant less chance of corruption.

No problem with a salary for MPs. But expenses (beyond travel expenses to and from their constituency, at the same rate that other public sector workers get) are not on really. For overnight stays, there should be taxpayer-owned-accommodation within Westminster that they can stop-over in. With the exception of ministers, their home should be in their constituence.

For ministers who spend more than 50% of their time in London, it is reasonable to have their home in London. But there should be a 'constituency flat' or something like that in their constituence for stop-overs. Owned by the taxpayer, who can then benefit from any increase in value.

A great many other workers have far less good conditions than this - for example the miltary personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and now involved in action in Libya do not get their children flown over to see them. It is a choice you make when you choose a career.

Given that many MPs have to spend a minimum of five nights a week in London for very many weeks of the year when Parliament is in session, the level of MP expenses/allowances you are proposing would deter all but the very wealthy from standing for Parliament, and certainly very many mothers. Can you really expect fairly ordinary parents in particular to sleep at a Travelodge or whatever for months on end with brief visits at home at the weekend if they are lucky, never seeing their kids ? Like some sort of Open Prison arrangement? I for one wouldn't ever dream of standing for election if that was the deal, until I was so past it that I was a lot less use than I might have been in my prime. No sane person would.

It's entirely different in the Armed Forces as you do a few carefully planned tours of duty and then retire at 40 or whatever, or move to a desk job, so it doesn't need to be as sustainable. They is also barracks for accommodation and mutual support for Army spouses and children, so families are not marooned and trying to sort everything out for themselves at a distance, like MPs' families.

There is also the matter of first class travel. For anyone who has had a demanding job that never ends, like being an MP, and who has to travel regularly and endlessly for work, there is a direct correlation to the amount of extra paperwork and emails you can get done in a week and the ability to park yourself somewhere with a table, a socket, wi-fi, and fewer leisure travellers. It's perfectly reasonable for them to do this, especially if these are long inter-city trips, and if people on here had had more experience of this personally I think they'd be a lot more sympathetic instead of fixating on the apparent status aspects of paying extra for these facilities. All you get in first class is what is standard in lots of other countries, and on Eurostar. It certainly isn't champagne all the way, no siree.

I've commuted all over the UK by train and I never travel first class. It's for people with fat bottoms needing wider seats when they aren't paying. There are many more people likely to understand and over hear your confidential things in first class and you shouldn't be working on anything confidential in public anywhere.

I would be content if we just gave MPs a flat sum for expenses, perhaps hired some PAs to provide central secretarial services at the commons and other central services.

Many MPs still don't seem to understand how the public feels about the expenses scandal.
Just listen to him

"I've got a wery wery large house...." he says

Xenia, that's incredibly rude, and anyway you work for yourself as and no doubt travel as and when you please, off peak where at all possible, and probably for many multiples of what the average MP earns, maybe with fewer working hours, and at times of your own choosing, so there are simply not the same sort of pressures there and you are kidding yourself if you think there are.

Try finishing a report within a completely unreasonable timescale, whilst being barked at by a boss (or whip), day in, day out on one of the nightmareish commuter routes into London, which are often standing room only if you can even squeeze on the train, and see how the other half live for a change. I bet you'd barely last a year under that kind of professional stress, even you.

FWIW your big bottom comment is up there for me with your recent sanctimonious announcement about how everyone would be sufficiently solvent if they only drank tap water all the time. It's daft, and completely misses the point.

Xenia, how amusing that you assume everyone on the left must be poor.

I know all on the left aren't poor. It's often only those who can afford to be who are socialists.

I doubt I work shorter working hours than MPs and I have done a lot of years of commuting and very often (these days once a week) standing all the way. I usually can get the last tube home. My daughters often get the night buses. They are not impossible to use.

Are people really suggesting that any of us are allowed to do confidential work stuff on trains whether in first class or otherwise? I very much doubt that is consistent with anyone's work policy.

Ah Xenia, if only life were so simple and we could pop everyone into their little box.

Are you two going to have a pissing contest about who earns the most?

(to the right)

I don't think I've ever said what I earn.

I don't think we have quite done enough in the budget. We are just slowing the increases in borrowing. We are not even stopping borrowing and no where near paying back capital. So we're like a family which is living on remortgaging the house every year which is not long term sustainable. Lots of bits of the budget have not cut things at all. No NHS spending cuts,.I think few education cuts. Lots of things on a chart I saw were not cut one iota. As I thought at the election there is so little to choose between the two parties. It's a shame.

Xenia, you said recently on MN that you earn in an hour what someone on the minimum wage earns in a week. That must be £237.20 an hour, £9488 a week, and assuming a 46 week working year, £436,448 annually. For comparison, the average wage is currently £432 a week excluding bonuses, or £22,464, which you earn in just over two weeks.

Niceguy-

^a) See my previous answer. Just because everyone is borrowing and up to their
eyeballs in debt, doesn't mean we should be. The US are screwed. They just don't
realise it yet. Just wait. When the day dawns on them that they cannot carry on
with their national debt either and finally make the cuts, the knock on effects
I think will cause another recession.^

It isn't 'borrowing and up to their eyeballs in debt'. This is the way modern Capitalist economies operate. The UK, and most other european countries have been in debt for the entire 20th Century.

What evidence do you have that the US is 'screwed'? Their economy seems to be going a lot better than ours right now. Their economy is growing at over 3%.

^b) After WW2, the UK was screwed. Understandably so. After all, there was a huge
war. That debt came down but for the last 30 years or so, we've happily lived in
debt on the understanding that economic growth would allow us to pay off the
debt and we were merely "investing". Except that growth was never enough, since
we just spent more each time we grew. Just in the same way each year I might
take out a loan because I expect a payrise the next year."

Actually, we've been in debt for the entire 20th Century. After WWII, we had the largest debt we ever had. It was at this time that we created the welfare state and the NHS. Since doing these things, the debt steadily decreased.

^c) That's your opinion. You may be right, you may be wrong. Plenty of
"economists" also think the cuts have been absolutely necessary."

It's a pretty well-known principle that you don't cut your way out of a recession. Drastic spending cuts were enacted in Ireland and lead to a financial crisis and stagnation.

falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/spending-cuts-harm-the-economy-more-than-tax-rises

^d) There are only two ways to reduce a deficit. Raise taxes, reduce spending.
The current coalition are doing both. I'd be interested to see where you pluck
the £120billion for tax evasion/avoidance from. And that's before considering
the likes of HSBC would relocate taking ALL their tax income with them. It does
neatly mean they are no longer avoiding tax......."

This is not entirely correct. It is not raising taxes which reduces the deficit, but raising tax revenue. When you reduce spending so drastically that you put people out work and on to welfare and reduce consumer and govt. demand for goods and services, you cause a recession. If you have a recession, your tax receipts will fall dramatically, and your welfare costs will skyrocket.

The figure for £120 is for tax evasion and tax avoidance, and comes from the 'Tax Justice Network':

www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/campaign-resources/there-is-an-alternative-the-case-against-cuts-in-public-spending.cfm

Even if the figure were 1/4 that amount, it would still be £30 Billion annually.

^www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/campaign-resources/there-is-an-alternative-the-case-against-cuts-in-public-spending.cfm"

I'm glad you agree that Trident should be scrapped. We should also consider Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya (Libya costs £3 Million per day).

===
You didn't even mention the other methods I suggested for raising revenue to reduce the deficit, such as the Robin Hood Tax, which could raise £20-40 Billion per year for the UK.

The point is, there is plenty of money going around. The problem isn't lack of money, but a lack of priorities, and a government which is ideologically committed to spending cuts and a smaller state.

Does Miliband support the Robin Hood tax? Why didn't Brown introduce it?