Further Cuts needed

[Ashtonian]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25617844

Reading this in the news today, I am absolutely astounded that in 4 years the conservatives have regressed back 150 years. They are telling us they are going to cut this and cut that, currently needing to save ANOTHER 25 billion pounds aparently, and of course it is all Labours fault. If these lot are elected next year for another term then i seriously worry for the poor half of the country, you could potentially see regression all the way back to the 80's. It might not be industries this time but there is a hell of a lot of jobs being cut because of capitalism within the business sector and there are only so many tescos you can have in the country to generate jobs.

I refer to the 1800's as this was the last genuine time the conservatives in their tory form were allowed to run with their ideas without opposition. Back then they taxed the poor on everything they could, including a poor tax! Add on top of that the poor houses that profited off the poor and it really was a terrible time in this country. HOWEVER, has times really changed?

1. Bedroom tax- Conveniently only affects the poor. Basically if you have a bedroom spare in your house, move to a smaller house or we will TAX you for it.

2. Pastry tax- The short lived idea that the food choice of generally the poor will carry an additional TAX to make it more expensive, with the government profiting from it. I am not generalising here, who do you think actually buys more from greggs, sayers and the like?

3. Working for free- Apparently a scheme they want to introduce is where people who are struggling to find work actually go and work for their benefits to gain experience etc. Except for one little thing, workforces can fill their vacancies for free and the people employed will not recieve any benefits from doing this, apart from being labelled job shy by the government.

4. Green tax. The wonderful idea that the conservatives had. Basically charge utility companies more in green tax, which reduces profits for said companies, which then is reversed by increasing prices for....the customers! Poor people struggle to pay even more for their utilities, the rich stay richer and the government does nothing about it.

5. Extension of the above, money provided for public transport for fuel etc is removed after conservatives take power. This leads to increase in bus fares, which affects.....the poor!

6. Ciggarette and alcohol prices. The glorious poor tax in disguise, not every poor person drinks or smokes but statistics show that more of the poor half do. Increase the tax on said items and you are secretly introducing a poor TAX as any price increase will hit the poor hardest.

Just a small example there of changes in the past 4 years but this country is soon to be on its arse and we all just let it happen. None of the above may affect you, and you will keep the majority (when they came for....i did nothing) groups and fair enough. All i am saying is i have never seen such an attack on the poor be so single minded, but wrapped up in all political bull**** and 'blame everyone else' atitude.

I ask one question;

How can it be that politicians with their big houses, big salarys and private educations tell the poor people of their country that the problems in their country are their fault and they need to cut back whilst they, and a upper class following profit and get richer from said cuts?

 

[Mrk]

Of course cuts are still needed, the deficit is still £100bn+ a year.

 

[neil999]

queue circular ideological argument that no-one can win....

 

[BigDunc'sFod]

Not being funny like but if you're that poor you should probably bin off buying prepared foods like pasties and definitely should cut down on ciggies and bevvies

 

[hullefc]

Osbourne has said he would take state spending back to pre 1948 levels, no surprise really as the ruling class hate some of the gains that the working class got after 1945.

 

[tonyhorne]

I wonder what the potential savings would be if they cut MPs expenses, perks and pension provision so that they were more in line with the rest of us?

 

[Moomin]

£25bn cuts from welfare. Rather than getting on the case of the tax avoiders who cost us £35bn in unpaid tax.

Bingo, its the tax avoiders and the corporate tax dodgers they want to climb down on. Rather disgraceful behaviour from the big corporations across the world really. I remember at one of my previous companies, being at a site in Poland and asking what a particular office i saw with a few attractive ladies in, what they done? I was told it was the EU tax avoidance team, but it was given another name.

 

[Mrk]

I wonder what the potential savings would be if they cut MPs expenses, perks and pension provision so that they were more in line with the rest of us?

A few million quid. We still spend £100bn more than we 'earn' every year, so while I support the sentiment, it's not going to close the gap.

 

[Tree13]

Not being funny like but if you're that poor you should probably bin off buying prepared foods like pasties and definitely should cut down on ciggies and bevvies

Spot on. Anyone who smokes and complains it's expensive is bonkers - just stop, and save yourself the money.

And to the OP:

The bedroom tax isn't a tax, it's a means of trying to ensure that council housing is more efficiently allocated. I will agree that it's not well thought-out, and it's definitely a hard sell as it doesn't affect homeowners at all. But the left-wing media demonised it very effectively by mislabelling it a tax, which it clearly is not.

Working for free is another well-intentioned but badly executed policy. We have a sizeable proportion of unemployed who do not want to work and this has to stop. However, the policy was drawn up in such a way that it can unfairly penalise others too, and there is far too much scope for abuse by businesses. Like you, I agree this is unacceptable. Nevertheless, something has to be done to reduce the numbers of people willing to live a benefits lifestyle, and you can expect another policy in the near future that will attempt to address this problem.

The green tax: you forget this was introduced by Labour. The true problem with the utilities market is that our companies are foreign-owned private enterprises.... but the Unions guaranteed that this market would be nationalised with their ridiculous behaviour while it was nationalised.

Having said all that, look at where other massive spends take place for no sensible reason: Chief Execs in local government are all horrendously overpaid, for example. The woman who runs Brighton and Hove city council is reported to be on a salary of a quarter of a million pounds - that's TWICE what the prime minister earns and she handles a smaller budget and a smaller workforce and has responsibility for less services in a smaller region with a smaller population.... now multiply that by every local authority.

There's a lot wrong in this country, but ignoring it all because cuts are hard is NOT the answer. Unless the question is "how can we bankrupt the nation?"

 

[Tree13]

there was more talk last week about targeting benefit cheats which costs us £1.2bn a year. turns out thats roughly a bit less than the shortfall on the banking levy. so rather than getting on the case of the banks to hand over what they should be paying they will use this as another excuse to demonise all people on benefits. Even though most benefit fraud is down to organised crime rather these days so its a matter for the filth and not something that can be solved by getting people to grass each other up.

At the risk of sounding objective:

Clamp down hard enough on any given industry and it will simply get up and leave. That will result in a loss of jobs and tax income. By all means adopt a more robust policy towards the tax-avoiding big companies, but the fact is you have to beware of pushing them too far.

Clamp down on benefits cheats hard enough and will they leave the country? Who knows, it's never been tried. But what does the nation lose if benefits cheats leave?

 

[Tree13]

I wonder what the potential savings would be if they cut MPs expenses, perks and pension provision so that they were more in line with the rest of us?

Probably not enough, but certainly a good place to start!

 

[michaelh1990]

rip up tax laws and rewrite them get companies and rich to actually pay tax deficit gone in an instant.

 

[Mrk]

rip up tax laws and rewrite them get companies and rich to actually pay tax deficit gone in an instant.

I agree with the first bit, but the last bit is pure fantasy.

 

[hullefc]

The bedroom tax has been designed to take money off those that are claiming, it is a dole cut, like they did in the 1930s. As for the idea dole cut is to 'allocate council housing more efficiently' is barmy. There are not enough 1 bedroom flats for those single people in 2 bedrooms flats to transfer too. Why? Because successive governments have discouraged the building of council accommodation for the building of private sector housing.

Social security will be squeezed not because there is not enough money, £375 billion worth of Quantative Easing i.e government printed money shows that, but because the ruling elite are determined the working class will pay for the slump in profitability.

 

[Deleted member 28206]

Tax the premier league footy players more