Election issues: Tax and public services

[Eric the Half a Bee]

In 2010 David Cameron squeezed into office partly on the back of claims such as "we'll cut taxes, not the NHS".

It's now 2024 and it's hard to say that public services are better than they were 14 years ago across the UK. They're not. In Wales there has been way too much blaming the other party for our failings going on - Labour saying it's not our fault, it's the funding we get from Westminster, while the Tories say it's nothing to do with what we give you to spend, it's how you spend it. Such arguments go around this board like a loop at times.

However, 14 years of Conservative rule over the UK has seen our public services get worse and decimated. Local authorities are even going bankrupt.

I have a simple question - why do we seem hell bent on continually trying to cut the amount of tax we pay yet keep expecting good public services? 14 years of austerity and cuts, supposedly to eliminate wastage and not affect services, have had a negative effect. Every day I read someone moaning about the state of roads, waiting times in the NHS and so on, not just in Wales but elsewhere in the UK, but everyone seems to still want tax cuts. One example I have from social media comes from a local authority that reduced their black bins collection. A friend of mine working in refuse thought he'd offer black bin collections more regularly for a fixed amount. He had a lot of takers. I asked the question of those people if they would be prepared to pay that amount extra in council tax for bins to be collected in the same way and none of them would. I found that quite remarkable that they wouldn't pay the council a bit more for bins to be collected more regularly, but would happily fork out for someone to do it privately.

Go back 100 years and more and workers would happily pay a small amount in their wages that allowed libraries, workmens halls etc to be built and maintained, so are we now as a society one that isn't prepared to pay for good public services?

[superfeathers]

In 2010 David Cameron squeezed into office partly on the back of claims such as "we'll cut taxes, not the NHS".

It's now 2024 and it's hard to say that public services are better than they were 14 years ago across the UK. They're not. In Wales there has been way too much blaming the other party for our failings going on - Labour saying it's not our fault, it's the funding we get from Westminster, while the Tories say it's nothing to do with what we give you to spend, it's how you spend it. Such arguments go around this board like a loop at times.

However, 14 years of Conservative rule over the UK has seen our public services get worse and decimated. Local authorities are even going bankrupt.

I have a simple question - why do we seem hell bent on continually trying to cut the amount of tax we pay yet keep expecting good public services? 14 years of austerity and cuts, supposedly to eliminate wastage and not affect services, have had a negative effect. Every day I read someone moaning about the state of roads, waiting times in the NHS and so on, not just in Wales but elsewhere in the UK, but everyone seems to still want tax cuts. One example I have from social media comes from a local authority that reduced their black bins collection. A friend of mine working in refuse thought he'd offer black bin collections more regularly for a fixed amount. He had a lot of takers. I asked the question of those people if they would be prepared to pay that amount extra in council tax for bins to be collected in the same way and none of them would. I found that quite remarkable that they wouldn't pay the council a bit more for bins to be collected more regularly, but would happily fork out for someone to do it privately.

Go back 100 years and more and workers would happily pay a small amount in their wages that allowed libraries, workmens halls etc to be built and maintained, so are we now as a society one that isn't prepared to pay for good public services?

I think that over the years, we’ve become used to public services getting worse. So not many people are keen to be taxed more for them to get “less bad”. There’s no incentive

[The Bloop]

Austerity in the 2010's led to massive cuts in central government funding to local councils. Despite some injections of extra funding since covid, services have never recovered. Councils are just firefighting. As far as I know, no party has addressed this in their manifesto which is worrying.

[Taunton Blue Genie]

The wealthy sometimes seem to be more obsessed about tax cuts than the average Joe.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

The conservatives want low taxation ......and value for money and all that etc etc .....but are the first to moan when the local council has to reduce the number of black bags they collect

Unfortunately, in order to get elected Labour are going to have to promise the same sort of thing

The liberal Democrats appear to be promising the biggest spending on the nhs of the 3 main parties but even that falls way short of what analysts think is needed

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Austerity in the 2010's led to massive cuts in central government funding to local councils. Despite some injections of extra funding since covid, services have never recovered. Councils are just firefighting. As far as I know, no party has addressed this in their manifesto which is worrying.

Social care will get more money from labour it appears but in order for big changes there will have to be tax increases

Labour will have to break promises unfortunately but there you go they can deal with that once they are in power

Either old people get someone coming round to help them and taxes go up to fund that or we leave them to suffer

I would say initially losing some votes but improving the service is worth the risk

[The Bloop]

Social care will get more money from labour it appears but in order for big changes there will have to be tax increases

Labour will have to break promises unfortunately but there you go they can deal with that once they are in power

Either old people get someone coming round to help them and taxes go up to fund that or we leave them to suffer

I would say initially losing some votes but improving the service is worth the risk

In the last budget there was £27bn available to Hunt/Rishi. Instead of investing it into public services they chose to pass it on as a tax cut. Purely a decision based on an election being in the offing.
For all his faults Boris wanted to increase national insurance with the receipts going directly to the NHS. His succesors cchosethe opposite so services just suffer further.

[pipster]

The conservatives want low taxation ......and value for money and all that etc etc .....but are the first to moan when the local council has to reduce the number of black bags they collect

Unfortunately, in order to get elected Labour are going to have to promise the same sort of thing

The liberal Democrats appear to be promising the biggest spending on the nhs of the 3 main parties but even that falls way short of what analysts think is needed

No they dont, Labour have already won the election. They have said they wont put up NI and Income Tax. They have specifically not mentioned any other general tax rises like capital gains, stamp duty etc. There was a Labour MP on radio 4 this morning that wouldnt answer the additional tax rises question.
As it stands if Sir Keir doesnt get economic growth after 6 months - then he will be putting up taxes or start cut backs.

Now if this was a tory - you would accuse the evil b'stards of cutting cutting cutting etc I hope you will be as vociferous when Labour end up doing the same, there is no magic policy that delivers growth - other than more exports or being able to drive efficiencies in public spending.

Total exports of goods for March 2024
£34.1 billion up £0.1 billion (less than 1%) on February 2024, but down £4.0 billion (10%) on March 2023

Total imports of goods for March 2024
£50.8 billion up £3.5 billion (7%) on February 2024, but down £7.2 billion (12%) on March 2023

The UK was a net importer this month, with imports exceeding exports by £16.7 billion, widening the trade gap (exports minus imports) by £3.4 billion on February 2024.
Source: UK overseas trade in goods statistics from HM Revenue & Customs

Sir Keir wont be able to dodge those stats when it becomes his problem on July 5th.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

No they dont, Labour have already won the election. They have said they wont put up NI and Income Tax. They have specifically not mentioned any other general tax rises like capital gains, stamp duty etc. There was a Labour MP on radio 4 this morning that wouldnt answer the additional tax rises question.
As it stands if Sir Keir doesnt get economic growth after 6 months - then he will be putting up taxes or start cut backs.

Now if this was a tory - you would accuse the evil b'stards of cutting cutting cutting etc I hope you will be as vociferous when Labour end up doing the same, there is no magic policy that delivers growth - other than more exports or being able to drive efficiencies in public spending.

Total exports of goods for March 2024
£34.1 billion up £0.1 billion (less than 1%) on February 2024, but down £4.0 billion (10%) on March 2023

Total imports of goods for March 2024
£50.8 billion up £3.5 billion (7%) on February 2024, but down £7.2 billion (12%) on March 2023

The UK was a net importer this month, with imports exceeding exports by £16.7 billion, widening the trade gap (exports minus imports) by £3.4 billion on February 2024.
Source: UK overseas trade in goods statistics from HM Revenue & Customs

Sir Keir wont be able to dodge those stats when it becomes his problem on July 5th.

If economic growth doesn't bring in more cash to splash on social care then labour will have to raise taxes

That's the way it is

With the Tories we would get ever worsening social care and tax cuts to keep them in power

I think most voters accept things can't go on like this

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

In the last budget there was £27bn available to Hunt/Rishi. Instead of investing it into public services they chose to pass it on as a tax cut. Purely a decision based on an election being in the offing.
For all his faults Boris wanted to increase national insurance with the receipts going directly to the NHS. His succesors cchosethe opposite so services just suffer further.

And they say Labour are dodgy

[The Bloop]

And they say Labour are dodgy

Always remember my economics teacher telling us the the first priority for any government is to get re-elected. They do that is through their policies, with the most effective being those that effect how much money is in people's pay packet each week or month.

[JamesWales]

This topic annoys the living hell out of me. Like the NHS, just a political football.

I have no respect for Labour on it. They labelled Teresa Mays good suggestion a "dementia tax".

[az city]

No they dont, Labour have already won the election. They have said they wont put up NI and Income Tax. They have specifically not mentioned any other general tax rises like capital gains, stamp duty etc. There was a Labour MP on radio 4 this morning that wouldnt answer the additional tax rises question.
As it stands if Sir Keir doesnt get economic growth after 6 months - then he will be putting up taxes or start cut backs.

Now if this was a tory - you would accuse the evil b'stards of cutting cutting cutting etc I hope you will be as vociferous when Labour end up doing the same, there is no magic policy that delivers growth - other than more exports or being able to drive efficiencies in public spending.

Total exports of goods for March 2024
£34.1 billion up £0.1 billion (less than 1%) on February 2024, but down £4.0 billion (10%) on March 2023

Total imports of goods for March 2024
£50.8 billion up £3.5 billion (7%) on February 2024, but down £7.2 billion (12%) on March 2023

The UK was a net importer this month, with imports exceeding exports by £16.7 billion, widening the trade gap (exports minus imports) by £3.4 billion on February 2024.
Source: UK overseas trade in goods statistics from HM Revenue & Customs

Sir Keir wont be able to dodge those stats when it becomes his problem on July 5th.

It's difficult to know where to start with this.

BOT on goods alone is highly misleading.

GDP Growth is driven by accumulating more resources (capital, labour and land (including raw materials)) and/or technical change (improving the productivity of said resources).

Government policies and myriad external drivers (like export demand) engender growth but they aren't its source.

[az city]

It seems to me both major parties are misleading the public somewhat on tax and spending.

The UK isn't a particularly high taxation state and its debt to GDP ratio isn't that high. I'm using G7 means as a comparator.

I think the arbitrary "golden rule" is either implicitly or explicitly being followed by both parties. It's a rule of thumb based upon the sustainability of debt payments, I believe, but I'm not sure it's still relevant. In short, there may be more headroom for debt-based spending than the rule implies.

Isn't the UK public's problem it wants US tax levels and Scandinavian public services so it gets a muddled neither. And that's what the parties are offering - muddle.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

In 2010 David Cameron squeezed into office partly on the back of claims such as "we'll cut taxes, not the NHS".

It's now 2024 and it's hard to say that public services are better than they were 14 years ago across the UK. They're not. In Wales there has been way too much blaming the other party for our failings going on - Labour saying it's not our fault, it's the funding we get from Westminster, while the Tories say it's nothing to do with what we give you to spend, it's how you spend it. Such arguments go around this board like a loop at times.

However, 14 years of Conservative rule over the UK has seen our public services get worse and decimated. Local authorities are even going bankrupt.

I have a simple question - why do we seem hell bent on continually trying to cut the amount of tax we pay yet keep expecting good public services? 14 years of austerity and cuts, supposedly to eliminate wastage and not affect services, have had a negative effect. Every day I read someone moaning about the state of roads, waiting times in the NHS and so on, not just in Wales but elsewhere in the UK, but everyone seems to still want tax cuts. One example I have from social media comes from a local authority that reduced their black bins collection. A friend of mine working in refuse thought he'd offer black bin collections more regularly for a fixed amount. He had a lot of takers. I asked the question of those people if they would be prepared to pay that amount extra in council tax for bins to be collected in the same way and none of them would. I found that quite remarkable that they wouldn't pay the council a bit more for bins to be collected more regularly, but would happily fork out for someone to do it privately.

Go back 100 years and more and workers would happily pay a small amount in their wages that allowed libraries, workmens halls etc to be built and maintained, so are we now as a society one that isn't prepared to pay for good public services?

Well clearly the conservative party and their core support ...are not prepared to pay for better public services

The government is focusing its core attack on Labour increasing public spending through increased taxation ......to the point of lying that civil servants backed them up on it

If the Tories were interested in this matter they wouldn't be talking about tax cuts going into this election

Would they ?

[pipster]

Well clearly the conservative party and their core support ...are not prepared to pay for better public services

The government is focusing its core attack on Labour increasing public spending through increased taxation ......to the point of lying that civil servants backed them up on it

If the Tories were interested in this matter they wouldn't be talking about tax cuts going into this election

Would they ?

What are you thoughts on Drakeford and Welsh Lab making cuts to the budgets on their devolved powers ?. i know you'll probably blame it on Westminster and Westminster would blame the british public and companies for not selling more goods and delivering more tax income to the Gov to spend on services. Taking too much tax has its consequences on services, it's a fine balancing act - that Govts all over the world struggle with - the UK is no different or so it seems based on my 40 odd years of remembering various UK Govts.

[Keyser Soze]

You are using an odd point of data. Saying “We are not particularly high tax / debt state because others are high” too is a defintion of stupidity. I often see this from London School of Economics political-economists and those of a chronic Keynesian bent.

Let’s bring your logic down to a level that many can understand. Imagine presenting an unmuscly fat person who is obese, with his weight at around 16 stone. You line him next to ten others who are fatter and even more obese, weighing at around 18-20 stone. Then you mistakingly pronounce “You know, actually this guy is quite healthy because these others are really fat”. You have used an extreme reference point to attempt to articulate normality as a defintion, when what you have should have done was anchor to men around a more healthy weight, such as 11-13 stone, ceterus paribus.

Allow me to disabuse you of your delusion. The stark reality is that all G7 have accumulated levels of eye-popping debt that are either record levels (Japan) or others are near record highs, or near levels not seen since the world wars - and that is without a world war!!!

Three further anchor points stand out to me:

1. Our debt levels to GDP are now triple what they were in 1989. At one point it was around 25% and falling. Now it is above 80% and rising.

2. Our levels of debt to GDP are now so bad, that the interest we pay each year on that debt now is the same size as what we spent on education. In other words, if our government were to bring the debt to GDP to zero we could pay for loads of teachers, build school and py off student debt. But because New Labour and this Conservative administration pursued deficit spending policies, we are accumulating dangerous levels of whose trajectory now looks difficult to stabilise. Simple rules - the more annual deficits occur, the bigger the cumulative debt, and the more the cumulative debt the more interest is paid to service the debt than spending on annual public services.

3. Tipping points. A heavy piece of research by leading IMF economists (actually decent ones, Carmen Reinhardt and Kenneth Rogoff) and they studied debt/deficits dynamics, currency crashes and systemic financial system crashes in the 5 major continents in the past 500 years. What they discovered was that developing economies struggled to recover their debt levels beyond 50% to GDP. Developed countries with no history of default were not able to recover at a range beyond 80-100% debt to GDP. Japan are around 200%, US 100%, UK around 85%, and several European countries are in the 70-100% zone.

We are not in a position to believe crankpot PhDs from LSE and members of the IFS who seem to believe we are “OK”. We are already in the areas known as “tipping points” where the only historic outcomes were debt defaults (haircuts) currency collapse or double digit inflation, as foreign and domestic investors lose confidence in the governments or the currencies themselves. Those views are not based on Political-Economic theory, favoured by people who want to cling to any micro/excuse for more uncontrolled ill-disciplined spending. Those views are based on the sheer volume and weight solid, data-based historical research, that are tried and tested across five centuries and 5 continents. To believe that “We are OK” is to believe “Azcity” over the above serious research.

I know who I will be trusting.

[pipster]

Who said "We are not particularly high tax / debt state because others are high” ?

[Keyser Soze]

Who said "We are not particularly high tax / debt state because others are high” ?

azcity further up:

“ The UK isn't a particularly high taxation state and its debt to GDP ratio isn't that high. I'm using G7 means as a comparator.”

[pipster]

So to sum up:-
All G7 nations have seen the same problems in terms of GDP %.
We have all gone through the same set of problems - Covid, Ukraine , supply chain issues.
It is not unique to any particular G7 nation or political party.

I can almost here the questions that will be fired back at you:-

• If we are all in debt - then who do we owe the money to?
• Seeing as we can print our own money are in charge of it - then why cant we just print more (always an interesting argument)
• Whoever we owe the money to can come and try knocking on our door and see how lucky they get
• Blah blah - I blame Thatcher.... The Factory's default response

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

What are you thoughts on Drakeford and Welsh Lab making cuts to the budgets on their devolved powers ?. i know you'll probably blame it on Westminster and Westminster would blame the british public and companies for not selling more goods and delivering more tax income to the Gov to spend on services. Taking too much tax has its consequences on services, it's a fine balancing act - that Govts all over the world struggle with - the UK is no different or so it seems based on my 40 odd years of remembering various UK Govts.

Making cuts to spending to balance the books is very different from using tax cuts to bribe voters ......which is what the tories are doing

I dont think you have thought through your post

[JamesWales]

Making cuts to spending to balance the books is very different from using tax cuts to bribe voters ......which is what the tories are doing

I dont think you have thought through your post

So cuts to the NHS that go against manifesto pledges are good, as long as it's Welsh Labour doing it?

Honest to god 😂

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

So to sum up:-
All G7 nations have seen the same problems in terms of GDP %.
We have all gone through the same set of problems - Covid, Ukraine , supply chain issues.
It is not unique to any particular G7 nation or political party.

I can almost here the questions that will be fired back at you:-

• If we are all in debt - then who do we owe the money to?
• Seeing as we can print our own money are in charge of it - then why cant we just print more (always an interesting argument)
• Whoever we owe the money to can come and try knocking on our door and see how lucky they get
• Blah blah - I blame Thatcher.... The Factory's default response

The fault lies with the government

Your tory government

Labour got blamed for everything in 2010

Now it's time for the conservatives to get it up the arris

[az city]

You are using an odd point of data. Saying “We are not particularly high tax / debt state because others are high” too is a defintion of stupidity. I often see this from London School of Economics political-economists and those of a chronic Keynesian bent.

Let’s bring your logic down to a level that many can understand. Imagine presenting an unmuscly fat person who is obese, with his weight at around 16 stone. You line him next to ten others who are fatter and even more obese, weighing at around 18-20 stone. Then you mistakingly pronounce “You know, actually this guy is quite healthy because these others are really fat”. You have used an extreme reference point to attempt to articulate normality as a defintion, when what you have should have done was anchor to men around a more healthy weight, such as 11-13 stone, ceterus paribus.

Allow me to disabuse you of your delusion. The stark reality is that all G7 have accumulated levels of eye-popping debt that are either record levels (Japan) or others are near record highs, or near levels not seen since the world wars - and that is without a world war!!!

Three further anchor points stand out to me:

1. Our debt levels to GDP are now triple what they were in 1989. At one point it was around 25% and falling. Now it is above 80% and rising.

2. Our levels of debt to GDP are now so bad, that the interest we pay each year on that debt now is the same size as what we spent on education. In other words, if our government were to bring the debt to GDP to zero we could pay for loads of teachers, build school and py off student debt. But because New Labour and this Conservative administration pursued deficit spending policies, we are accumulating dangerous levels of whose trajectory now looks difficult to stabilise. Simple rules - the more annual deficits occur, the bigger the cumulative debt, and the more the cumulative debt the more interest is paid to service the debt than spending on annual public services.

3. Tipping points. A heavy piece of research by leading IMF economists (actually decent ones, Carmen Reinhardt and Kenneth Rogoff) and they studied debt/deficits dynamics, currency crashes and systemic financial system crashes in the 5 major continents in the past 500 years. What they discovered was that developing economies struggled to recover their debt levels beyond 50% to GDP. Developed countries with no history of default were not able to recover at a range beyond 80-100% debt to GDP. Japan are around 200%, US 100%, UK around 85%, and several European countries are in the 70-100% zone.

We are not in a position to believe crankpot PhDs from LSE and members of the IFS who seem to believe we are “OK”. We are already in the areas known as “tipping points” where the only historic outcomes were debt defaults (haircuts) currency collapse or double digit inflation, as foreign and domestic investors lose confidence in the governments or the currencies themselves. Those views are not based on Political-Economic theory, favoured by people who want to cling to any micro/excuse for more uncontrolled ill-disciplined spending. Those views are based on the sheer volume and weight solid, data-based historical research, that are tried and tested across five centuries and 5 continents. To believe that “We are OK” is to believe “Azcity” over the above serious research.

I know who I will be trusting.

****ing hilarious reply - Reinhart and Rogoff's work was trashed and they are considered pariahs. But keep quoting them, fool.

(PS. Maybe google more deeply before quoting bollocks.)

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

So cuts to the NHS that go against manifesto pledges are good, as long as it's Welsh Labour doing it?

Honest to god 😂

Cuts to the Welsh NHS are nothing to do with a party trying to win votes

In fact Welsh government cuts are definitely going to lead to a reduction of votes but they had to be done

The Tories are promising TAX CUTS which will lead to reduced services ........that's not being done because it has to be done ....its being done to try and win votes

I am surprised people can't see the difference .....unless they are Tories 🤔

Welsh government makes cuts knowing it will reduce its popularity and lose votes , definitely

Sunak , on his arse , promises tax cuts to GAIN votes


🤔

It's obvious that the tory boys on here are pissed off they are getting a shafting

It's going to be a tough few years for you all