Quote:
Originally Posted by martyh
but you can't look at absolute numbers can you ?.That link is based on one interpretation ,give those figures to 10 other people and you will get 10 more interpretations .IDS is absolutely right in attacking the tax credit system, it is responsible for a lot of hardship ,doesn't work ,is over complicated ,expensive to run and unneeded .There are better and more efficient ways to put money into peoples pockets that doesn't involve putting half the working population on benefits .In short that the tax credit system needs to go
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what are better ways?
the tax credit system is no more complex than the income tax system. I think this complexity word is been used cheaply to try and get rid of any public expenditure that helps the poor.
either way you distracting from the point they lied.
---------- Post added at 08:52 ---------- Previous post was at 08:44 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
Debt isn't the problem. We're likely always going to be in debt and that's ok.
The deficit is the problem but how to deal with it is where the disagreement is. You can cut as much as you can but you don't want to harm growth, the deficit will be a lot higher if unemployment is high and income is low. When the economy recovers we'll hopefully see benefits drop and tax income rise. That will be a lot more effective that cutting on the margins.
India is being cut out anyway but Foreign aid is such a negligible amount of our spending, it's become a smokescreen.
We all know where the real spending is, that's the elderly and pensions followed by healthcare. The Government should be more aggressive in raising the pension age.
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some good valid points made there.
The pension spending I agree with, its simply huge. But it wont get touched in any way other than raising the pension age or making existing taxpayers get a private pension, they wont cut existing pensioners, political suicide. the sick and vulnerable of working age and young unemployed even tho they a tiny fraction of the pension spending are a softer target.
foreign aid is interesting, currently the foreign aid budget is higher than whats spent on the unemployed, the government repeatedly considers foreign aid as affordable and has protected it from cuts, yet the money spent on the unemployed is apparently unaffordable, doesnt compute.
Growth is key to all this. If one does austerity, then its gaurantueed recession, then this will ultimately grow any deficit, especially when done alongside tax cuts.
some people eg. are ok with cutting the deficit as long as it isnt payed for by via increased personal taxes, its fine as long as it comes from other people's pockets. I cant stand self serving people.
Growth will naturally erode a deficit. Which is what happened during labour's tenure up until 2008, the deficit was shrinking until the banking crisis. Which proves the rubbish blurted out about public spending means very little, its a red herring.
If you have to balance the books, it is sane to throw money into the bin?