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So with the UK government debt to GDP ratio at its highest level since WWII, your proposal is to… increase public sector spending… and lower taxes?
by 88 4y ago
So with the UK government debt to GDP ratio at its highest level since WWII, your proposal is to… increase public sector spending… and lower taxes?
- pydry 4y agoThere's an eye watering level of wealth at the top. Merely shifting tax burden a bit on to high end property would allow revenue neutral increased spending and lower taxes on the middle and working class. It might help keep a lid on that crisis of unaffordable housing as well that tends to follow when an excess of £££ is sloshing around.
- 88 4y agoPerhaps we could do this with an NI increase that costs higher earners more, raising the NI threshold to benefit those on lower incomes, reducing fuel duty, and providing council tax rebates for those living in lower value properties?
- kmlx 4y ago> There's an eye watering level of wealth at the top. the top 1% of UK earners account for 30% of all income tax. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/13/richest-britain-income-tax-revenues-institute-fiscal-studies https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/13/richest-bri...
- smcl 4y ago... and could likely afford a good deal more with zero impact on their own standard of living
- cjrp 4y agoNeeds the context of what % of total wealth they own though surely?
- pydry 4y agoTop 1% of wage earners, on the other hand... arent actually that rich but are taxed a lot. In London that gets you a fairly modest flat. The stratospherically wealthy dont have salaries they own yield bearing assets and have a much lower tax burden. This is where the real fat is. Nonetheless to the average person it's easy to confuse the two groups.
- deathcakes 4y agoNo indeed, let us continue to double down on austerity, given its truly astonishing success so far
- 88 4y agoIf you completely ignore the context of a global financial crisis in 2008 and pandemic in 2020, I suppose you might think austerity has been unsuccessful.
- deathcakes 4y agoI'm genuinely curious to the reasoning behind austerity - I confess to not having any academic qualifications in economics but it does seem to me that deliberately removing services from the poorer sections of society is going to introduce more friction to the system, which will lead to poorer outcomes in general. The fact that our public debt continued to soar, even before the pandemic, seems to me to suggest that even on its own terms it wasn't a winning argument. Do you have any sources that make the argument for austerity? This is a genuine question - as I say I have no formal background in the subject but from what I've managed to find I have found little in the way of convinvcing arguments.
- 88 4y agoAusterity is not a difficult policy to understand. If your personal debts had grown exponentially over the past year, and your income showed no signs of exceeding your outgoings, would you not make some effort to reduce your outgoings?