| Topic: | Re:The False Economy...brought to you by all Governments... | |
| Posted by: | Carrie Richards | |
| Date/Time: | 08/12/10 10:08:00 |
| Dear Sam, Not sure why you need to ask me not to call you a fascist, as I have not called you any names, or anyone one else really, so I am not likely to start now. But to be slightly patronising back…your argument seems to be; ". My bunch just happen to have a better understanding of the numbers and what they mean for real people including students. But I would say that is rubbish. Your lot, which includes I think 18 millionaires in cabinet have no idea what your cuts will mean to the people on the lowest incomes. They are all unlikely to use public transport, health or education. They are unlikely to have any real idea what it means to lose the £10-£30 per week allowance that enabled you to stay on in higher education. Or what free travel means to young poor people. If they had any understanding about being poor, they would never try to take away a percentage of housing benefit allowance and think that people can seriously make up the difference from their benefits. Or force people to have to move from their homes. It wouldn’t be so bad, by your lot like to make it easy for your rich friends. Vodaphone was left off 6 billion in taxes ( the Indian gov chose to take them to court unlike us). And then Osborne try to use Vodaphone as an example of what a company can do in the UK. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/22/vodafone-tax-case-leaves-sour-taste Then there is the Philip Green case – he avoids 1.2 billion in taxes, by paying his wife in Monaco and he is brought in to advise about public cuts. !!!! http://www.channel4.com/news/topshop-protest-over-sir-philip-greens-taxes And these are not isolated cases. As an elected representative you should understand the extreme anger that some of us feel. There is a growing collective of students , workers, etc that will resist these cuts and will take to the streets to fight them. You can expect the same response as our brothers and sisters in Spain, Greece, Ireland, etc. Ireland can walk away from the banks, default and be in a better situation than to allow itself to become enslaved to the debts being straddled onto the country by the banks. If you would like to see more about what making these cuts is wrong then go to; http://falseeconomy.org.uk/ In a nutshell if argues that; Why the cuts won’t help the economy Cutting spending is not the same as cutting the deficit The government says that its deep, rapid cuts cannot be avoided. Ministers claim that they are the only way to deal with the deficit. Anyone who doubts this is a "deficit denier". We disagree – and so do many expert economists. We don't deny the deficit. It was an inevitable result of the worldwide recession. Of course it has to come down. But that does not mean that the government's way is the only way. Its decision to close the deficit in just four years, and to do so by cutting £4 in spending for every extra £1 it will raise in tax is not the only option. There are alternatives. Ministers want us to think that the only choice is between cutting spending and increasing tax rates (such as VAT). But there is another factor that they ignore: the amount of tax they collect depends on how strong the economy is. If the economy does well, then that automatically helps close the deficit. If companies become more successful and more people are in work then they pay more tax. But deep cuts will slow down the economy, and therefore reduce the tax take. This makes the deficit harder, or even impossible, to close. A longer time scale would give economic growth the chance to do much of the hard work of deficit reduction, rather than relying on cuts and tax increases. That's why we say the cuts are a false economy. Our economic problems run deep, and experts argue about them in ways that most people do not understand. But the basic issues at stake are not that difficult – and we do have choices about what to do. Do we try and get rid of the deficit in four years, or let the extra tax that flows from economic growth do more work? Do we want to see four pounds of cuts for every one pound of tax increase? In a democracy we should all have a say – especially when neither governing party put such massive cuts to voters at the election. The aim of False Economy is not to put forward a detailed alternative, but to challenge the myth that there are no alternatives. These deep and rapid cuts are not only damaging and unfair, but unnecessary. But we do think that there are policy choices that can help. • We want policies that will get the unemployed into work (and we don't mean cutting their benefits). • We support a Robin Hood tax on financial transactions, and a crack-down on tax avoidance and evasion. • We want to see support for investment in a low-carbon future that can help bring down unemployment and stimulate growth. |