I have long argued that austerity is a choice. It is welcome that some who have long seemed in denial on this issue are now beginning to agree. Take this comment from the Guardian this morning:
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the coalition government made “remarkable choices” to cut income and corporation tax that shifted the burden of balancing the budget to already hard-hit areas of government spending.
IFS director Paul Johnson said the move had also limited the Treasury's scope for bringing Britain's mounting debts under control.
“It's been very striking over this parliament how £12bn or so is being spent on increasing the personal [income tax] allowance [and] something like £7bn-£8bn on reducing corporation tax,” Johnson told MPs examining Osborne's autumn statement delivered last week.
I actually think the corporation tax cut is slightly bigger at about £10 billion, but let's not split hairs. The key point is that tax cuts that are remarkably ineffective in achieving their stated goals (because very little of the benefit of income tax allowance changes goes to those on low income whilst corporation tax cuts have quite clearly not boosted the economy or even business investment which has been turgid, at best) have been given whilst the dogma of austerity has been pursued.
First, Paul Johnson is right to say this is a choice.
And he is also right to imply it is a very bad choice when the consequences for the services the government can supply are so significant.
It is as if, he might be implying, this government may not want the state to function in the way that most people expect it to. And if that's what he's really saying he's right. I think it fair to say that he has at last rumbled that this government's goal is not the delivery of services but the dismantling of the mechanisms of state for the benefit of a few. If he has reached that point, welcome to the enlightened Paul. You're a valuable addition to the team.
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When I find the electorate at large in agreement with the analysis of Austerity by the IFS I will be happy.
But unfortunately many are fixated on the defict including to some extent the Labour Party and believe it should be reduced completely as well as believing Gordon Brown tanked the Economy
Indeed- the populace has been duped and conned by economic myths and effectively ‘drugged’ by a complicit media that ‘manufactures consent’. Not only that-there only available protest vote, UKIP, is founded on similar mendacity compounded by racism and the stimulation of lowest common denominator psychology.
We are in a mess- the need for change is effectively disenfranchised.
There is always the Greens but a vote for them is probably a vote for Cameron.
‘Forward to the 1930’s with the coalition!’ Back to widespread poverty, the lunatic economics of austerity, and, to justify it, right wing lies, myth and propaganda that Goebbels would be proud of.
Oh yes, and the appearance of a right wing party, feeding off fear, anger and bitterness, that blames everything on a convenient scapegoat called the EU.
But where is any other media coverage of his comments? It seems that what he is saying is so fundamental as to how we judge this Government’s actions that it should be given headline news. I listened in vain to see if the BBC would report it.