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Ritchie\’s budget

It\’s a blinder, really.

We must have fiscal stimulus so therefore we need to have tax rises.

Sadly omitting the point that tax rises are, by definition, fiscally contractionary.

7 thoughts on “Ritchie\’s budget”

  1. Where to begin?

    “1) A ‘Green’ investment bank”

    Bollocks. If “green” investments were better than the non-green variety, all investments would be green already.

    “2) More lending to small and medium size business”

    More to the point, fewer restrictions on such businesses (and all other businesses, while you’re at it).

    “We have well over 2 million unemployed. We don’t need cuts until this number is tumbling.
    … And what is the economic logic of paying a teacher to sit at home when they could be teaching?”

    All of that rather depends on what you cut. Arguably, a teacher teaching is better than a teacher gardening, but there are many public sector employees who demonstrably do more harm than good, and many more who simply fulfil no purpose at all.

    “Cut Trident.
    Cut aircraft carries.
    We can’t afford either and don’t need them.”

    Likewise for the EU and several hundred quangoes.

    “14) Restrictions on ISAs so only green ISAs get relief in future”

    Acknowledging that “green ISAs” must be made preferentially attractive by artificial means.

    “We definitely do not need:
    a) VAT increases”

    We actually agree on something!

    “b) Anything that makes the UK look like a tax haven”

    But not many things. Better, surely, to get a small take from a lot of people than a large take from hardly anyone. All together now: “Laffer Curve”.

    My version? A huge, immediate, and continuing reduction in the size of the state (start now with those quangoes, and keep going), followed, when public finances are less like those of a banana republic (which shouldn’t take long), with similar reductions in taxation.

  2. “11) Capital gains taxed at income tax rates”

    Of course our retired accountant sold up in 2000 when the effective CGT rate was 10%.

  3. Apparently we don’t need cuts now because of all those unemployed people. Under the next heading, savings, he proposes cuts, presumably addingto the unemployement among shipbuilders etc. He manages to propose cutting the only area that Labour have underfunded!

  4. How glad am I that Murphy is not even contemplating entering politics! I can safely say that, in the very hypothetical scenario that he became Prime Minister, I wouldn’t just be emigrating, I’d be withdrawing all my assets as well.

  5. “Sadly omitting the point that tax rises are, by definition, fiscally contractionary.”

    Only if you subscribe to outdated economic dogma that Ritchie has debunked, Tim. Your steadfast refusal to see the light is somewhat sad, you know.

    All hail Ritchienomics.

  6. The Pedant-General

    D the P,
    I refer you to the Mugabe riposte: You may wish to ignore economics, but economics won’t ignore you…

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