Dave and George have been touring the studios. They are trying to drum up support for what I hope is going to be the toughest British budget ever. If it’s not, then we are done as a leading-edge country for a generation at least. We need massive retrenchment and we need it now. So far Dave has been doing a pretty good job of the difficult work of persuasion. Even the BBC News site is coming around to the idea that we cannot simply spend our way out of a debt crisis. In recent days pictures of the Canadian flag and stories about how the Swedes, Canadians and Irish have climbed out of deficit spirals and survived have floated around on that popular web site. If we don’t slash the deficit NOW we will be paying ever higher taxes just to service the interest. We will be locked into a French-style drudgery of slow growth, high taxes and never-diminishing debts.
But this morning on the radio yet another announcement hit my sensitive brain as it raised itself from its slumber. EVERYONE would be hurt, it suggested. Well, George, let me ask you something.
I have barely touched a public service in recent years. I left the state education system when I was eight years old. I did go to University, but I paid tuition fees and if you check my payslips I think you will find I have repaid my subsidy many times over since I left. I have had a couple of of vaccines and been to seen the GP about twice since 1997. I have benefited from the state’s recent unsustainable largesse by approximately fuck all.
I have never claimed a benefit or a handout. I have repaid my student loan. I am not in debt. I pay my own way. I do not depend on anyone. I save a good chunk of my salary. I create wealth and export services. I pay my taxes. I expect and receive little from the state in return. So basically, George, I am asking: why I should pay more?
Before you hit me hard I want to see you hitting those who have benefited most from Labour’s fiscal disaster. I want to see the quangistos hit hard. Those six-figure morons who have made things worse. I want to see regulators and industry bodies slashed and burned. I want to see the advertising budget set to zero. I want to see the interfering busybodies who tell us how we should live queuing up at the Jobcentreplus before I pay a single penny more in income tax. I want those non-job wasters – who have had pay and pension rises while those of us who work in real industries have seen our real incomes drop by 5% a year or more – hurt first. How about those so-called professions which have seen huge gains under Labour’s watch. I want to see all those bureaucrats who think it’s their job to say “no” to the developers and investors axed before a single tax rise is announced.
The couple who live above me have three children, a PT Cruiser, Sky TV and no job. I have no kids, no Sky, no car, no debt. Why should I be hurt first? I want those who can work but choose not to to have their standard of living chopped before I should take a hit. That may sound selfish to some, but I do not ask the state for assistance. I do not lean on anyone. Why should I fund for them a more lavish lifestyle than I afford myself? Benefits have gone up by 5.3% this year, most in the private sector have not had a raise in years. How is that “progressive”?
By all means put VAT up to 20%, actually make it 25%. That will send a signal that the days of a consumption economy are over. But if you fuck those of us who produce and save and invest to prop up those who have never, George, then you better wonder who is going to vote for you next time. Or whether we will actually stick around to pay your new taxes. Debt-free Australia is looking rather attractive, I must say.
Doesn’t sound selfish to me, Blue.
It’s interesting to read all the comparisons with Canada in the press at the moment. I’m not great scholar on Australian budgetary history and have no idea if they have had to make a period of swinging cuts, but I do think there are a couple of things we could learn.
Firstly, if you don’t have private medical insurance you have to pay additional income tax (of 1.5% I think). If you earn a reasonable salary the premiums are less than the income tax, so everyone takes out the insurance. This is a massive load out of the public health system.
Secondly, everyone has to pay 9% of their salary into a pension scheme. Your employer deducts the money at source and there are no opt outs. The pension time bomb is a massive issue in the UK which we need to sort out. Finally salary pensions in the public sector need to end, now.
BE if you don’t use any public service than you can’t be affected there. Unfortunately we all know it is going to be a mix of cuts and tax rises. You’ll definitely be clobbered on the tax rises.
“You’ll definitely be clobbered on the tax rises”
I know, and that is what seems so unfair to me. I already pay more than my fair share and also “do the right thing” in terms of saving, not going out there and robbing people, etc. and yet it is me AGAIN who will pay for Brown’s reckless policies. Some of the recipients of his electoral bribery should have to pay it back.
/applause
Well said! That deafening screeching you hear is the sound of thousands of turkeys suddenly realising it’s Christmas…
Fine, let each of them tell us why their role is vital to the functioning of the nation.
Should be a good laugh!
Damn!……..I posted on the wrong thread!
Great post, You ought to get along to the Libertarian Party web site, tailor made for you.
Just arrived from P.
Awww Didums. Happier now?
Anyway, it isn’t really the Conservatives fleecing you; you are in fact still paying the bill for Labour, who think you should pay for the privilege of having a job, Blue.
I know , I know; you have to get up in the morning and it’s not fair. Don’t get started again. There are always those worse off …well, better off – you know what I mean.
Most of them don’t realise it’s Christmaas though, that’s the scary thing. Take a conversation I overheard today for example:
Turkey 1 (40 something, one of these people who go around enforcing the smoking ban)
Turkey 2 (almost 60, half asleep, can’t wait to be pensioned off)
Turkey 1: The thing is, if they cut £26 million, they’ll just spend £27 million doing it, I mean you know what they’re like, they’ll just spend more than they save
Turkey 2: (disinterested, just wishing turkey 1 would go away) Yeah, I know what you mean.
Turkey 1: Well you saw that last reorganisation, I mean how much do you reckon that cost them, and to do what? There’s no point in them even bothering trying to cut £26 million they’ll probably just spend more money than that on these stupid consultations and away days again and it’ll save nothing.
Turkey 2: Well we’ll just have to see I guess
Me: Who’s cutting £26 million then
Turkey 1: The council are, blah blah blah
Me: Nah, I reckon it’ll be more like 20% over 3 years max
Turkey 1: Well, if they go that far, that’ll probably mean I won’t get my regrading to senior officer! Great! Fantastic! (walks off in a huff)
Their Chief Exec has been lying to them for the last couple of years telling them the cuts won’t go further than 3% over 3 years! Even the Thatcherist guy I work with reckons that there’ll only be about £15 billion taken off the whole UK’s 2011 budget. I’d put my money on £35 billion at least.
By the time they’ve finished striking they’ll probably have been better off just taking a 20% pay cut!
“Even the BBC News site is coming around to the idea that we cannot simply spend our way out of a debt crisis.”
It’s never been possible to spend your way out of a debt crisis. It is possible to spend your way out of recession if other conditions are right and you spend the money on the right things (i.e. something that improves your national productivity and/or infrastructure long term) but not by simply employing more and more people doing unproductive work. That’s how you create a debt crisis in the first place.
Cuts are necessary in the short to medium term, but in the longer term what is needed for real sustainable growth is jobs – and lots and lots of them – in a productive sector.
It’s never been possible to spend your way out of a debt crisis.
Well it used to be theoretically possible, but Professor Brown managed to convincingly prove the theory wrong once and for all.
Perhaps it’s time we stopped funding this system? Those of us who are able to make money but are tired of seeing it go to moochers and looters should leave the well paying jobs that through both action and tax are of great help to society. Instead we should take up jobs under the tax threshold and supplement our income in alternative ways.
That way we no longer fund and maintain the system we rightly despise. That way we live as free as we can. That way we withdraw our sanction; the sanction of the victim.
Perhaps it’s time to shrug.
Hmm, thing is I don’t agree with Rand’s idea that philanthropy and giving people a hand up is basically immoral. I just don’t accept that I (and people in my position) should be hurt while helping. I don’t agree that there should be no redistribution by universality. A post on this subject at some point, perhaps.