Govt sends out misleading statements about how taxes are spent

[edamsavestheday]

Osborne being economical with the truth False description of 'welfare' also includes public sector pensions, apparently. Nice to see Tory propaganda being paid for with public money - I wonder how much that is costing the taxpayer?

Agree

As the UK still has a £100 billion annual budget deficit/overspend, why shouldn't that annual deficit, contributing to an ACCUMULATING National Debt, be allocated and explained to 'the people' - as it is debt accumulated in their, their children,s and possibly their children's children's name - that can only be paid down by a combination of economic growth, higher taxes, and smarter government spending?
www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/

This Public Sector (unfunded) Pension liability of £1,000,000,000,000 is separate bill payable by the taxpayer, from the National Debt figure of £1.450,000,000,000 above - which (being unfunded) comes out of annual government budgets when due, affecting other government spending options.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14134847

'The people' should understand that in 2015, whether the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Scottish Nationalists, Greens or god help us UKIP parties are the largest partys or in coalitions - government options/extra spending is limited - no matter what political magic dust is promised before hand.

Maybe if in 2010 our national debt wasn't swept under the national carpet by government, and we were able to have an honest debate, for an honest General Election - the voters could have decided who they wanted on the spending/cuts/tax FACTS before them, rather than a denial of the extent of our debt/budget problems back then - and how they'd have done things differently, since.

edamsavestheday ..... I haven't seen the letter yet, or read any analysis, so what is wrong with the Welfare "description", the £££size, or composition?

Excuse me, as no sooner as I posted, I saw your smart link on the shaded background.

I now get your point, but looking at the long list of government spending sections, if Welfare was sub sectioned, they'd probably need another page, think of the forest. lol

In a democracy, where people take growth for granted if it doesn't directly go into their pockets, maybe it will help whoever runs the government in 2015, as those looking for 'more of this, more of that', will better understand the constraints on government, and lower their expectations accordingly.

How much are they spending on foreign aid and the EU?

Ironmaiden .... ah those old UKIP chestnuts, the UK blowing taxpayers money away on brown, black, and white foreigners - no British National Front agenda to worry about there then.

Well to partially answer to your question, using a magnifying glass on the link provided, of the 15 categories given, please correct me if I'm wrong (if your spy glass is better than mine), it is 14 and 15 on the list.

As to the actual amount per person, my glass isn't that good, but I'd suspect not that much considering the total foreign aid/ebola money is I believe less than 1% of our total economy, the EU net contribution currently seems to be a similar £10 billion - in an economy spending what, over £800 billion a year from memory?

"Now Britain could face extra £750million bill for foreign aid because of our expanding economy

Britain missed David Cameron’s flagship foreign aid target last year despite handing out an extra £2.7billion, it emerged yesterday.

The figures, buried in an official report, suggest the country could have to fork out up to £750million extra by the end of next month in order to hit the target this year – although Government sources insisted the final increase would be lower.

The revelations are an embarrassment for the Prime Minister who has repeatedly boasted about meeting his pledge to spend 0.7 per cent of Britain’s annual income on foreign aid."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2821213/Now-Britain-face-extra-750million-bill-foreign-aid-expanding-economy.html

But there is one party who questions the metropolitan elite's cosy consensus - UKIP.

Claig .... firstly are you (and the Mail) aware the GDP is a lagging economic indicator, it only gets in, if memory serves, around 3/4 of the data spread across all sections of the economy when quarterly published, and each quarters figure is open to revision for a year or so afterwards????

Now I don't know if the government hasn't found enough worthy projects in this year and/or will roll over the shortfall into the next, - but just think of the field day the small minded people at the Mail, UKIP and BNP would have, if Cameron OVERPAID foreign aid projects over and above the 0.7% of GDP pledged?

But thank you for that Mail link, as it had some useful stats within; while UKIP/Farage down the pub worries about relative small 'beer money', this is what the Conservative led "metropolitan elite" is achieving for the whole UK.

"Our economy will grow ten times faster than that of France this year and four times faster next year, according to official Brussels figures."

"The European Commission expects output in the UK to increase by 3.1 per cent in 2014 and 2.7 per cent in 2015. This compares with growth of just 0.3 per cent in France this year and 0.7 per cent next year."

"The International Monetary Fund has predicted Britain will next year overtake France to become Europe’s second biggest economy behind Germany."

I agree OP; this is a shameless conservative campaigning leaflet except it's publicly funded and given the authority of an official government publication. Welfare - designed to make us think of scrounging feckless workshy layabouts - is intentionally designed to be as big as possible by rolling in anything that could possible be included; it includes universal OAP benefits such as winter fuel payment etc which would seem to be more naturally a part of "pensions".

Foreign aid is over £12 billion and the EU was ( IIRC) listed as £8 billion.

Assuming 30 million taxpayers that about £30 a month per person in foreign aid and £20 a month to the EU.

I do seem to recall that the breakdown I received saw the EU budget measured in pence though not sure what mathematical gymnastics they used.