The Resolution Foundation is asking the wrong question. this afternoon. I got this in an email:
The answer is very straightforward. It is that Reeves should stop managing the economy based on fiscal rules that are meaningless and achieve nothing but hardship for those on the lowest incomes - as if that is their essential design quality.
Why isn't the Resolution Foundation asking why Reeves is not abandoning her fiscal rule in the light of changed circumstances?
And why, too, is it not asking why she has them altogether?
Could it be that the Resolution Foundation is part of the economic problem this country faces, and no part of any solution? It is, after all, neoliberal to its core.
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“Why isn’t the Resolution Foundation asking why Reeves is not abandoning her fiscal rule in the light of changed circumstances?”
Packed to the rafters with TINA/LINO neolibtards?
Or perhaps they just ain’t curious – don’t ask questions, or wonder “gee is this really true”.
Or… they are safe pairs of hands providing propaganda for the half wit running the finance ministry.
It will be some combo of the above – the usual suspects making life shittier by the day for UK serfs & peasants… who voted for them. “The VOTERS” as McSweeney-Todd calls them.
What worries me most is the lack of willing to ask questions. There night be a video coming on this….
@BBC PM programme had a tame Labour MP supposedly to ask whether cuts in winter fuel, two child benefit, boosting arms spending , slashing aid programme and the coming swinging welfare cuts was what Labour was elected for .
But in several minutes failed to ask the innocent question of whether there might be other sources of money – other than bearing down further on the poorest.
As you say Richard – failure to ask questions – looks very much like news management .
What I don’t fully understand is what motivates these fiscal rules. It is impossible for them and the austerity which they create to result in economic growth. I can see that they maintain inequality- but is that it? How do neoliberals benefit from austerity and economic recession/ stagnation?
The aim is to keep the neoliberal financial elite happy. There is no other motivation for them.
How about this: Macron says he is is going to tax the rich to pay for more weapons. What is the problem with doing that in the UK? Where there is no shortage of rich, & hyper rich people.
Much better to hit the poorest Mike. It’s pure LINO, of course.
There’s something not right as a quick look at their website shows they’ve 17 “economists”. I’m going to contact them and see if they are familiar with the work of Mosler, Kelton , Wray etc. If not I’ll send them a few books. Maybe these people are Economists of the home variety rather than serious students of Keynes et al?
Their head economist was, last time I heard, a LibDem of the decidedly Ornage Book persuasion.
Well, I’ve no idea who the “Resolution Foundation” are, but if they want to “hit” Reeves’ fiscal rules then most of us on here would be delighted to help them hit those “rules” – bash them to smithereens.
That is precisely what they do not want to do.
They are a very soft centre ground think tank who undoubtedly subscribe to the importance of fiscal rules.
Their former director is now a junior Treasury minister.
But how does this keep the neoliberal financial elite happy? What/how do they benefit?
Taxes are kept low.
Government spending is kept low.
The City gets to dictate terms.
Finnace feels powerful.
That is what their egos wants.
David Willett’s mob.
Well, what can one say?
From their website: ‘The Resolution Foundation is an independent think-tank focused on improving the living standards of those on low-to-middle incomes’. Perhaps their first question should be: After twenty years have we improved the living standards of those on low-to-middle incomes? Hmmm, now what?
What is their incentive to succeed? They would do themselves out of a job.
Three questions journalists NEVER ask.
Q1. How many UK governments since 1997, have kept their own fiscal rules?
Q2. How many UK governments since 1997, have had to break/”adjust” their fiscal rules to meet their responsibilities?
https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/section/5711/fiscal-rules/
https://fraserofallander.org/publications/uk-budget-preview-1-what-are-fiscal-rules-why-do-we-have-them-and-could-they-be-made-better/
(Hint: 2008 broke all the rules, and should have taught us the folly of fiscal rules, but instead we just keep making ’em & breaking ’em even more frequently, again and again and again.)
Q3. What options does the UK governent have for meeting its ordinary and extra-ordinary spending responsibilities at this time while controlling inflation, given that we have a fiat currency and our own central bank? (SSH! DON’T MENTION MMT!)
I seem to remember Starmer saying something about those with the broadest shoulders bearing the heaviest burden.
Presumably that lie went the same way as the RF’s supposed concern for those on low to middle incomes?
Reeve’s economic policies were rubbish to start with. She built her budget on the sandy foundations of neoliberal economics instead of on the rock of monetary reality.
Now the storms of Truskance & Putin’s fascism have beat down on that Treasury house and brought it down with a great crash. But she will build the next one on foundations that are just as sandy as before.
Even her insistence that her March statement wouldn’t involve substantial changes from her autumn budget, has fallen by the wayside.
Yet again Labour will make the poor pay for the increased wealth of the rich.
It’s another omnishambles!
Thanks
That is exactly the issue. Fiscal rules, as used by Labour and the Tories alike, are arbitrary constraints designed to justify austerity and suppress public investment while serving the interests of capital. Reeves is clinging to them not because they make economic sense, but because they align with the neoliberal orthodoxy that dominates British economic thinking—an orthodoxy that the Resolution Foundation, for all its claims of concern for low-income households, never seriously challenges.
The real question is why Labour, which claims to be the party of working people, is still bound by this nonsense. Circumstances have changed—high inflation, a cost-of-living crisis, and a crumbling public sector demand urgent intervention, not self-imposed fiscal straitjackets. Yet Reeves insists on “iron discipline” rather than using the government’s power to invest in people and services.
The fact that the Resolution Foundation isn’t asking these questions suggests it is more interested in upholding the status quo than in genuine economic transformation. This is the problem with so much of the so-called “centre-left” in Britain—it accepts neoliberal constraints as immutable rather than recognising them as ideological choices. If change is going to come, it won’t be from them.
Well, at least they’re not the IFS!
A reminder of what Rachel Reeves stands for… (from the 2015 election campaign under Ed Milliband’s leadership).
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rachel-reeves-says-labour-does-not-want-to-represent-people-out-of-work-10114614.html
“We are not the party of people on benefits. We don’t want to be seen, and we’re not, the party to represent those who are out of work. ”
LINO describes those of us who are not in employment, as “economically inactive”.
What do they think we do with our money? Eat it?
She has been sickening for a long time.
The Resolution Foundation constantly point out that fiscal rules are of questionable use. Their analysis of issues is also critical of government thinking
See for example their analysis of the incapacity and disability system at
https://www.youtube.com/live/LcdKhk5b-Qs?si=0HZn5YqXRDrSuAmY
Its former director was CEO for Ed Miliband. Now he is Treasury Minister. The RF is hard core neoliberal.
That doesn’t stop them from producing very critical analysis of policy proposals
I hear what you say.
I note what their most notable director is doing.
I know to which I give more weight.