Just incase you forgot...
...what they said in the election:
TB hopes the coaliton won't be that stupid. The softening up has certainly been sustained over the weekend but you would have thought the hints on VAT would have been stronger to weaken the blows. It's an open goal to the likes of Balls and is a tax that should be being slashed. We need people spending more not less right now. Grumble.
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6 comments:
Totally agree with you AGAIN TB (I am making a habit of this), although we may well differ in our reasoning.
VAT is a regressive tax that hits the poorer end of society disproportionately harder than the richest.
Aside from that, they have no mandate to do it, and yes, it will harm the economy and ultimately slow down the recovery. They seem to think that because they didn't rule it out, the public will swallow it.
"Shouldn't the government be more like Ronseal" - ha!
"VAT is a regressive tax that hits the poorer end of society disproportionately harder than the richest."
I don't really give a toss about scrotes not being able to afford White Lightning anymore. In my view, Labour voters should be forced to indemnify the rest of us for their poor judgement via the tax system.
Total crap.
This country has just come through a massive consumer boom, during which we experienced persistently high levels of real unemployment.
It is perfectly clear that the incidence of tax is weighted far too heavily towards labour rather than consumption.
The truly regressive taxes are payroll taxes on the working poor. Until we raise the thresholds so that the average working person does not pay tax on their employment, we will continue to face high levels of unemployment and unsustainably high levels of welfare costs.
DB
ughh...who knows? I would agree with your friend anonymous, regarding the dishonesty of the campaign, which inevitably would lead to a question of trust at some point.
But any way, from where we are now, I'm not sure we have a choice. The deficit has to be the priority, period, even with the inevitable hit on the "recovery".
Liam Halligan writes a weekly column, generally repetitive in theme but fairly enlightening, explaining each time how we are slightly more fucked than we thought we were when we read his column the week before: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/7840486/Budget-2010-Courage-and-conviction-needed-to-tackle-the-worst-crisis-since-1976.html
Oh come on guys, "we have no plans to raise VAT" is CLEARLY politics-speak for "we'll probably raise VAT, we just don't want to admit it during an election campaign".
I don't agree with the VAT rises, but let's not pretend they have no mandate for it.