Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Nothing left to say on tax - FT.com

"  By international standards, Britain is not overtaxed. With stretched public services and a budget deficit that gapes like a mortal wound, the state must take a bit more money from most people for the sake of most people. This means something like a higher standard rate of income tax. Merely squeezing some remote sect called The Rich will neither generate enough revenue to make a difference nor honour the principle of solidarity. Borrowing is no answer. These tawdry ruses imply the welfare state is only worthwhile if others pay for it.   "




" This argument is tantamount to self-immolation. Any Labour leader who made it would forfeit the next general election, if she or he were not laughed to oblivion before getting that far. Even Ed Miliband said nothing like it during the five-year tour of leftwing orthodoxies that ran into the ground at last month’s general election. Voters do not wish to pay more tax and do not assume the tax they already pay is a proxy measure of their goodness as people. "




I don't think Labour will have a strong leader for years, they might develop from the current election but I suspect a paradigm shift will be needed first.




Labour has nothing left to say on tax - FT.com




Taking so many people out of tax at the bottom IMHO reduces democracy to a place where the majority do not feel they can hold the politicians and burocrats to account because they don't pay. It will come that lower rates of income tax will be the means to solve social costs and ignite interest in politics again, but not for a while, sadly!




If the economy and state services are not correctly sized, funded and made sustainably effective by growth then the battle ahead will hot us in very interesting ways, I hope it will be based on policy and pragmatism not just political opportunism and political narratives from and into corners.


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