Well done George Osborne - stonking budget

[claig]

Tax free Allowance rising to £11000
40% tax threshold rising to £43000
Corporation Tax falling to 19% and then 18%
National Living Wage will reach £9 by 2020, will start at £7.20

If they carry on like this, Labour are finished and poor old UKIP and Farage won't stand a chance of getting a look in. But credit where credit is due - well done Osborne!

I have to say, I'm loving this claigbot! He/She/They usually give me the rage.

remains convinced claig is a bunch of bored mail journos or kgb agents

My friend is a grand down which will push her and her child into poverty. I calmed her down and explained that all will be well as the government are redefining child poverty. Phew she said, relief all round.

claig, the fact this budget has (initially) pulled the wool over your eyes is worrying, you usually cut through the crap quite quickly here and if you believed the budget was good for the lower paid then god help the rest of the country.

we are £1450 down, or close to that.

I get min wage, how the hell do I make that up? the extra pennies coming up dont count for much.

thecrimsonqueen
I remain convinced that the budget is a step in the right direction.
Yup, shafting all small business has gone down really well.
NOT

FWIW claig is a long standing poster of very consistent and often unpleasant political views

TheCrimsonQueen, you see this budget as a step in the right direction, and of course you're entitled to your opinion.

I on the other hand think it's absolutely disgraceful that the second lowest income group stand to lose around £1500 per year from next April.

The cost of living has increased massively over the last few years, especially housing. There is a shortage of social housing, which is only going to get worse when the right to buy scheme is extended to Housing Association tenants.

I admit, there needs to be some changes to TC, but not like this. It's far too brutal.

'claig, the fact this budget has (initially) pulled the wool over your eyes is worrying'

I only looked at the headline figures, I didn't understand the details until later. Osborne done me up like a kipper.

Hannahouse, I'm not a he, I'm a she and yes I do think the Tory government is too left wing in many ways (politically correct, rooftop wind turbine and modernising) and I am certainly not Nick Clegg (he is a moderniser). I like Farage, I want the working poor to be helped above the bankers and when I saw the headlines, I thought Osborne had helped the working poor (which he has to some extent), but I only found out later that he had taken away more than he had given.

'if you believed the budget was good for the lower paid then god help the rest of the country.'

Yes, I think Osborne has pulled off a master budget in terms of politics and spin. Most of the country will not bother to look at the detail and will focus on the headline figures and they will think it is a good budget and this will hammer Labour and UKIP too. If he carries on like this, he will win the next election, because I think that most of the people affected would not have voted for him anyway and the rest fear that a Labour government would affect them worse.

Osborne went as far as stealing some Labour policies and as Helen Lewis of the New Statesman has said on the Sunday Politics, Labour has the image of "the Welfare Party" and that is not good enough to win an election and that is why even Harriet Harman has accepted some of Osborne's policies. Osborne has outflanked both Labour and UKIP with this budget.

I no longer thin it is a good budget, but that is probably not how the majority of teh country will see it.

"I think that most of the people affected would not have voted for him anyway and the rest fear that a Labour government would affect them worse."

It's not a good budget for the working poor who may or may not have been Tory voters, but it's not good for the squeezed middle or small business owners either...who are more likely to be Tory voters.

'but it's not good for the squeezed middle or small business owners either...who are more likely to be Tory voters.'

Yes but they fear Labour much more. The squeezed middle are always squeezed by Labour and they think the Tories will treat them better, so I think they will stick with the Tories.

Osborne is getting his cuts done early in the term. When we get near the General Election, he will cut lots of taxes and then he will win again.

I can only hold out for Independence here...

All those in support of the budget...just be honest and say I am a selfish bitch/bastard. Don't bother trying to rationalise your heartless greed...really there is no need.

I think what this is showing is that the budget is cutting tax credits to people who are out working, just not earning very much.

I can understand people who work being against people who never seem to work, although they are fit and healthy and capable of work, but seem to live off benefits, that would piss anyone off...but its actually people out working , the same as everyone else, who are now losing much needed money.

Its just that we dont earn a great wage, we stuck in at school and have worked since 16, but are still not earning a great deal and the tax credit top ups are very much needed..to pay rents/electricity etc, not flat screen tellys and nights out.....now they are being cut, we'll still continue to work away, as hard as ever, but we'll skip meals and run into debt much sooner than before

Thats the reality of this all.

I can understand the welfare bill needs to come down, but money is being taken away from low paid families...there was an outcry when child benefit was taken off a person earning over £50k, that was difficult but the argument was surely someone earning enough to pay higher rate tax could afford to drop a few pounds, that must have hurt, but I imagine it was doable, as seen from this thread now its couples and single parents earning as little as £17k a year who are having their money cut, surely this cant be seen as justifiable?

I had a look at the figures. Families where no one works, no change albeit a freeze on their income.

Low paid families who work 16 hours up to full time. Tax credits cut so taking money from low paid working families. Not great for those affected at all.

I've just seen this and smiled, it was posted on one of the other threads discussing benefits

"Parents should not live on a couple of pieces of toast a day so their kids can have proper meals, or super glue their kids shoes together because they can't afford to replace them."

I already superglue ds's school shoes, doesnt everyone??

actually arrowminta, that's really annoying, people working are losing money yet people not working aren't....

I realise people not working dont have much money to be losing, that much is sure, but people like me out earning £6.50 an hour know they'd probably be better off not working but they feel work is always better for them, then they learn cos they work they are losing out....well, what to do now

see thats what this budget has achieved, someone earning the minimum wage is bitching about someone else who gets £70 odd quid a week on benefits......the tories must be rubbing their hands in glee now, they;ve got us where they want us.

All those in support of the budget...just be honest and say I am a selfish bitch/bastard. Don't bother trying to rationalise your heartless greed...really there is no need

Harriet Harman has declared that labour support limiting child tax credit to 2 children, and also labour have previously declared support for the benefits cap. Is Harriet Harman also a selfish bitch? Or does welfare need to be adjusted to be fairer, so that those who do not claim have the same freedom to make lifestyle decisions, e.g. about what house they can live in and how many children they have, as people who do claim?

I don't understand why the workers are being screwed over but the unemployed aren't?

Yes, I think you are right that the econnomy is still not very strong and he has therefore borrowed more than he said he would. But the move on tax credits has hit people early in the cycle. I think he hopes he can get better growth to deliver cuts in tax later on.

Osborne is hitting the strivers, the low-paid hard workers.

Gavin Kelly, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, predicted this in 2012

"George Osborne's strivers have a shock in store
The Tory trope of the deserving and undeserving poor obscures the real nature of the coming welfare cuts"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/11/george-osborne-strivers-shock

and now he explains what has happened in this budget

"On pay, George Osborne has commendably put his foot on the accelerator, while on tax credits he slammed it into reverse. The numbers show it adds up to a bad deal for the working poor. But politically it flows with a powerful current of popular opinion that sees a decent wage floor as a moral imperative, but support for family incomes as an expensive luxury. That is a sentiment for which both right and left should take their measure of responsibility."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/12/gavin-kelly-raising-pay-slashing-benefits-working-poor

'Do you think increasing corporation tax to 30% would be too high?'

Yes. I believe in lower taxes in general and cuts in ring-fenced foreign aid spending by the modernisers.

Every time I read about this budget, I find something worse. And all I can think about when I do so is IDS dancing and Gideon's smug face whilst he giggled to himself at his own jokes and looked to see if DC was laughing with him.

I would be all in favour of welfare being cut because of the tiny percentage of people who are apparently on benefits as a 'lifestyle choice' (ha!) but I'd prefer them to find a way of doing it which doesn't screw over millions of the 'hard working families' they claim to want to support, whilst not affecting the people they are supposed to be targeting.