Tory Tax Cut Proposals

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So they plan £21 billion tax cuts - what services will go I wonder ?

Poor old Dave - this is like Blair finding out a Labour thinktank he set up has proposed nationalising the commanding heights of the economy .
 
Originally posted by Ardross@Oct 18 2006, 09:02 PM
So they plan £21 billion tax cuts - what services will go I wonder ?

Poor old Dave - this is like Blair finding out a Labour thinktank he set up has proposed nationalising the commanding heights of the economy .
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How about a load of the 'services' and wastage at local council level.

My (Tory) borough back in the UK had a habit of putting in speed humps one year, removing them two years later, then putting new traffic-calming obstacles in the road a couple of years afterwards.

I'm sure there are other more wasteful councils around the country that could use a little bit of 'streamlining'.
 
So what percentage of GDP do you think should be taken in tax?
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There is no fixed answer to that question, but I would have thought that as income levels rise an increasing proportion should be spent by the state on the public good.
 
What is the public good and who decides Grey? Apart from rehabilitating juvenile offenders I can't think of anything I would spend it on.
 
There's evidently a much more cost effective way of getting rid of juveniles that misbehave. <_<
 
Come to think of it, I don't think we ever got round to discussing the actual "preferred" method although I am assuming you would probably get change from a fiver.... <_<
 
In a subsistence economy where no surplus wealth is generated the state should avoid further impoverishing the people and obviously should take only a small share of resources.

At the opposite extreme, in the year 2150 when all manufacturing is performed by robots and nobody is employed in that sector, it would be dysfunctional to leave the wealth generated by automation in the hands of a few moguls. For the economy to perform efficiently redistribution of income would become a necessity and not just an ethical goal.

It would also be desirable that part of any additinal wealth generated would go towards better education, better public transport, open and equal access to information, better care for the elderly and, as has been rightly mentioned, an improved alternative to the primitive penal systems we have currently.
 
It seems to have escaped your notice Grey that owing to successive Chancellors' tax regimes, the manufacturing base of the UK has already all but disappeared.

It's scary that a MAJORITY of people of working age are now, if not on state benefits, employed by the state; ie their salaries are paid from the taxes paid by those actually producing something /providing a service which can be sold or exported; and their index-linked pensions are likewise paid - and will be into their cushioned old age - by the ever-diminishing wealth-creating minority. It's not a sustainable scenario. The country, both privately and publicly, is massively in debt already.

And I don't want no robot picking my horse's hooves nor curry-combing his tail, thank you very much
 
On the morning that British Steel is sold to Indian company Tata I am of course aware that the manufacturing sector in high-income Britain is in decline. I saw an interview with James Dyson in whihc he explained that it was no longer possible to site sophisticated manufacturing operations in the UK because you have to be situated near the people making the parts and these are all based in the far East nowadays.

But this is because the UK is moving up the economic evolutionary scale. It is still making plenty of profit from overseas manufacturing operations and these profits are generating employment in the UK.

Your statistic concerning the majority of citizens receiving their income from the state is true of Northern Ireland, but I didn't know it was also true of the rest of the UK. Even if it's true, it need not be scary. What is wealth for if it can't be used putting people to work in activities that are of benefit to society? Is that not also a knd of wealth?

The type of thinking that classifies a producer of chewing gum as 'productive' or 'wealth creating' but labels a physiotherapist in the NHS as unproductive is archaic.
 
Originally posted by Headstrong@Oct 20 2006, 02:26 AM
It's scary that a MAJORITY of people of working age are now, if not on state benefits, employed by the state.
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I have no idea where that came from, but how about a few facts?

The total number (full time equivalents) in employment in 2005 was 28,713,000.

Of these 5,846,000 were, in one way or another, employed by the public sector (or as you say, the state).

That represents 20.3% of all those employed.

The public sector employees included:

NHS and other Health & Social - 1,529,000
Public administration - 1,066,000
Education - 950,000
Police - 264,000
Armed forces - 210,000
 
Have I got this wrong, Brian.................are you saying that there are 950 people in education or should that be 950,000?

Surprised that there are more police than soldiers..................never seem to be any around when I want one! :D
 
Originally posted by Colin Phillips@Oct 20 2006, 01:16 PM
Surprised that there are more police than soldiers..................never seem to be any around when I want one!
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Ah, but when was the last time you tried to find a soldier?
 
Originally posted by Headstrong@Oct 20 2006, 02:26 AM
It seems to have escaped your notice Grey that owing to successive Chancellors' tax regimes, the manufacturing base of the UK has already all but disappeared.

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The destruction of manufacturing industry in this country had little to do with taxation. It was Margaret Thatcher's unyielding adherence to monetary policy as theorised by Milton Friedman and others that caused the irrevocable decline.

Even those economists who were proud to label themselves "monetarists" now agree that it was a defective theory.

Leaving aside pure economic theory, imagine that you were to have written a novel in, say, the sixties, in which you wrote about the future in which the government encouraged the payment of dividends rather than investment in capital plant and research and development, and huge bonuses paid in the City of London and elsewhere created record champagne sales (and a massive rise in the price of properties in the seven figure price range) while coalmines, steelworks and engineering plants were closing down daily with all the human misery that that entailed. Why, you could have been hailed as the new Orwell!
 
Originally posted by Venusian@Oct 18 2006, 10:15 PM
So what percentage of GDP do you think should be taken in tax?
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Not sure what it should be, but for anyone wondering what it is I have just put this information on another thread that it is currently 37.2% jumping from 36% last year. This evidently means an extra £310 for every adult in the country. Evidently, we pay more than tax as a % of GDP than the Japanese, Americans and Germans. Not sure what their percentage is though.
 
Originally posted by Grey@Oct 20 2006, 06:55 AM


Your statistic concerning the majority of citizens receiving their income from the state is true of Northern Ireland, but I didn't know it was also true of the rest of the UK. Even if it's true, it need not be scary. What is wealth for if it can't be used putting people to work in activities that are of benefit to society? Is that not also a knd of wealth?

The type of thinking that classifies a producer of chewing gum as 'productive' or 'wealth creating' but labels a physiotherapist in the NHS as unproductive is archaic.
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I don't think that, to take just one example, having more managers in the NHS than doctors is 'of benefit to society' - and I think a huge amount of public expenditure is not only wasted but misdirected or positively harmful [I cite the salaries of MPs and their advisors as an example...]

I don't think I kept a copy of the cuttings of the pieces I read with all the figures but the percentages certainly stuck in my mind! They don't tally with Brian's but then I'm aware we read different 'organs of the press'... LOL. I think his figures, wherever he got them from, are a severe underestimate, esp for public administration; and they probably exclude some categories I would include. Do they include the huge sums spent on 'Mangement Consultants' or Massive IT projects outsourced to private firms? I doubt it; but these things are still funded from tax.

On reflection, the 'over 50% of those of working age dependent on the public purse' MIGHT include people on various benefits. I do find that a shocking figure, either way.

It's not archaic to see 'wealth-producing' as a different matter in terms of national wealth from service industries and professions paid by the state. Where those are supported by the tax-payer, they are per se not 'wealth-producing' in terms of GNP, quite the reverse. Paying people out of their own taxes is financial suicide in the long term... it's like borrowing from one account to pay your own interest on another. And I won't even start on the raiding of pension funds to support all these state dependents, so throwing more and more people into retirement on state benefits...

I agree that encouraging shareholder and capital ripoffs - esp by foreign companies - has been a huge mistake: look at what's happened to Thames Water, or British Rail/Railtrack - quite scandalous. But red tape [esp from Europe] and employment protection law [ditto] have also contributed greatly to the shift overseas of most manufacturing and other previously thriving industries such as printing. I did say that the fault lies with 'successive Chancellors' and you can include PMs in that process of course

The ever-rising price of property is an understandable if obscene reaction to all this - it's the only way people feel they can keep abreast of inflation. Successive Chancellors and PMs have turned us into a nation of property developers, a process which has only accelerated under this Govt - the gap btwn rich and poor had widened hugely in the last 10 years - and how capitalist is that?

The stark fact is that this is NOT a rich country - we are already massively in debt, both publicly and privately. I think we are extremely badly governed and have been for many years; and the economic ignorance of the electorate has a part in this. I do find it scary, tho with luck I won't be around when the shit hits the fan


Yrs, Codger Curmudgeon
 
OK, I have the 2003 OECD figures which I put up on here before to combat arguments that we were "the highest taxed nation". I'll put them up again. It should be remembered that tax is only part of the question as well. It's what you're getting in return. Anyone who has any experience of medical services in the USA will understand what I mean.

Total taxation as a percentage of GDP - 2003

Canada - 33.9
Mexico - 19.5
USA - 25.4

Australia - 31.5
Japan - 25.8
Korea - 25.5
New Zealand - 34.8

Austria - 43.0
Belgium - 45.8
Czech Republic - 39.9
Denmark - 49.0
Finland - 44.9
France - 44.2
Germany - 36.2
Greece - 35.9
Hungary - 38.3
Iceland - 40.3
Ireland - 30.0
Italy - 43.4
Luxembourg - 41.6
Netherlands - 38.8
Norway - 43.9
Poland - 32.6
Portugal - 33.9
Slovak Republic - 33.1
Spain - 35.8
Sweden - 50.8
Switzerland - 29.8
Turkey - 32.9
UK - 35.3

And if you think that a low tax economy is necessarily preferable, ask anyone who has been to both, as I have, whether they'd rather live permanently in Mexico or Scandinavia!
 
No more recent figures available or are they basically static?

Brian, talking of health costs in the USA, I assume you have private health cover in the UK and assuming you lived permanently in the US you would take out a medical insurance policy there too.
 
Codger Curmudgeon,

Do you think that the people who educate the young and equip them with the skills needed to enter the workforce are engaged in productive activity? Or the doctor who gets someone fit and well enough to return to work?

Do they make any less of a contribution to our collective wellbeing than the proprietor of an amusement arcade, a producer of chewing gum or a PR consultant?

Looney Leftie
 
Originally posted by Headstrong@Oct 20 2006, 02:14 PM
They don't tally with Brian's but then I'm aware we read different 'organs of the press'... LOL.
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I thought that you were supposed to be a professional researcher? I have no idea in what subject you specialise but it's certainly not economics. I see strong Daily Mail influences in your (totally incorrect) assumptions.

As for my reference points, try this:

National Statistics Office - Employment Figures

or this:

Global Economic Data - UK Statistics

You seem to have confused views as well - you are not happy about public sector employment levels but on the other hand you condemn (rightly in my opinion) the level of privatisation undertaken by this and previous governments.

Your point on property prices is certainly a headline led one - and one that is quite commonly held. The fact is that taken over the long term rises in property values reflect rises in incomes and the graph smooths to follow the same line.

Finally, here's an interesting comment:
"The stark fact is that this is NOT a rich country"
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Opinions differ but the most commonly used number for total nations in the world is 193 - that's 192 members of the UN plus Vatican City. There are two acceptable ways of measuring "the richest". If you measure purely by GNP the UK is fourth richest. If you want to take the measurement of GNP per head of population then the UK is fifteenth (though the fourteen nations ahead include some of the low population "financial services" states such as Luxembourg and San Marino.

And if you want my sources for the above data I'm happy to supply them. "Organs of the press" they're not.
 
Originally posted by Kathy@Oct 20 2006, 02:30 PM
Brian, talking of health costs in the USA, I assume you have private health cover in the UK and assuming you lived permanently in the US you would take out a medical insurance policy there too.
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Yes I do and of course I would but I would be one of the lucky ones who could afford full cover. Just under one in six of the US population have no health insurance at all.

In four years from 2000 to 2004, Americans spent an ever-growing proportion of their salaries on health care and for the most part got a lot less for their money, forcing millions into the ranks of the uninsured or personal bankruptcy, according to US government figures and several independent assessments.

Nationwide, workers' costs for health insurance rose by 36% between 2000 and 2004, dwarfing the average 12.4%increase in earnings since President Bush took office. The number of Americans spending more than a quarter of their income on medical costs climbed from 11.6 million in 2000 to 14.3 million in 2004.

The 2004 figures are the latest I have but you can be assured that thngs have not improved.

Let me give you a couple of personal anecdotes - my late brother-in-law was a US resident for 40 years. He served four years in the US airforce. His widow has had paid for health insurance for years but she now has MS and her cover will run out at a certain level of treatment.

When I was at the Breeders' Cup in Santa Anita a friend, who is English but who lives in the Florida for six months of the year came back to the hotel late at night having had plenty to drink. He fell out of the taxi and broke his arm. he is a wealthy man and has never had insurance of any kind, apart from that which the law dictates necessary. He went straight to hospital wher he was examined, X-rayed, the arm plasterd up and he spent the night in a room (shared with one other man. That was the full extent of his treatment as we were all off to Las Vegas the following day.

The cost of that hospital visit and one night stay? $10,000!

There is a lot wrong with out health service and this current government's various schemes haven't helped it but I know which system i tink better.
 
Why is it that whenever the NHS is criticised, the only other system that gets considered is the American one, as though their model was the only conceivable alternative to ours?

What about other European countries, or, if you have to go to another continent, what about Canada?
 
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