It's time to stop arguing over trifles. Brown cuts VAT by 2.5%. Cameron drops his 'sharing the proceeds of growth mantra' but says this means he'll just not increase spending by so much, a change of maybe 0.5% of GDP.
In the last 10 years the state has grown by over 30%. This is on top of growth under both John Major and Mrs Thatcher and it was too big then.
Meanwhile, the economy is dropping of a cliff. The U.S. reported it's fastest every increase in unemployment last year and Dell, which on its own accounts for 5% of Ireland's GDP, announced it was closing its factory there. There are serious doubts about the U.K.'s ability to service its debt let alone pay it off and the value of the pound has fallen by over a quarter against our major trading partners. Yet all our politicians do is talk about trifles. A few more hundreds of billions of debt here (on top of the trillions we already have). A miniscule tax cut there.
It is time for something more forthright.
The state has got too big. It should be cut in half. From 40% of GDP to 20%.
This is not to say that these services will disappear; just that responsibility for paying for them should be given back to the people. This isn't about cuts; it is simply about letting the people decide how to spend their own money. Only this way, do we stand a chance of being able to weather the coming economic Tsunami.
No comments:
Post a Comment