Monday 18 July 2005

Are they cutting what needs cutting?

The Scottish Tories are on the front page of the Scotsman again. This time the news isn't about taxis but - shock, horror - taxes:
THE Scottish Conservatives are preparing to go into the 2007 election with a radical pledge to cut the basic rate of income tax by 3p in the pound, The Scotsman has learned.

Party researchers have been told to come up with ways of funding the income tax cut, which would then be adopted as the centrepiece of the Scottish Tory manifesto for the next Holyrood election.

It's that second paragraph that will cause problems: how are the books to be balanced? The Tories seem to be relying on that old favourite: "cutting bureaucracy and back-office staff". I'm sorry, that won't do. We need to abolish whole swathes of "front-office" government jobs that should never have been in the state sector in the first place.

Elsewhere in the Scotsman George Kerevan writes:

Contrary to another myth, cutting tax would not actually reduce the amount of cash spent in Scotland; it would only transfer the spending decision from the Executive to the ordinary citizen.
Exactly: the money that could and should be saved by slashing taxes can be recycled back into the economy via spending on privatised "schools 'n' hospitals", ones that would work far better than the "bog standard" products of the welfare state. I fear that we'll have to wait a little bit longer before the Scottish Tories campaign along these lines. Eventually, someone will.

1 comment:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

Neil Craig
I would much rather see them putting the money into cutting business rates & corporation tax. Cutting income tax provides instant gratification whereas the latter provides long term wealth. The former is more easily saleable. 
 
Of course if increases in per capita state spending here was kept at zero until England has "caught up" with us both would become easily affordable.

21 July 2005, 09:46:44 GMT+01:00
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David Farrer
Oops! At least those of us in Scotland who pay for the premium content get fiddly little vouchers that enable us to get a "free" copy of the paper. The total cost of this is less than paying the cover price.

18 July 2005, 17:21:18 GMT+01:00
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Sorrowful Young Werther
You canny access that link to George Caravan, the Capitalists at the Hootsmon:-: have decided the invisible hand should determine who gets to read their 'excellent' journalism :lol:

18 July 2005, 16:36:50 GMT+01:00