Blair punks Red Ed

The Rookie

Clearly being a cycling forum we won't be mentioning 'road fuel duty' and the VAT that is then levied on that duty..... or vehicle excise duty for that matter, both of which for the average family somewhat skew the amount that goes in 'tax'.

jedster

The 50% rate was wrong in practice (deterrent to business) and principle (illiberal and repressive).

By the second point I just mean this - if someone goes out and earns an extra £1 (by working longer or harder) they shold get to keep at least half of it, otherwise they are not working mainly for themselves and their families but for the state. 50% rate plus NI means that more than half went to the state.

On tax allowances, please do remember that when Labour introduced the 50% rate band (was going to be 45% but they upped it) they also removed the tax free allowance for people in that band. That's right higher earners don't get ANY income free of tax.

But even if you think the 50% band was wrong, was now that right time to cut it given coming cuts to benefits etc?
Fair question. From the point of view of popular opinion and near term votes, almost certainly not. For the long-term good of the country, I think so - it provided a clear signal to businesses thinking about investing in, say Switzerland, that the UK was not going to have excessive taxation.

But isn't it unfair to cut taxes for the well-off when benefits are being cut? Yes. But remember this, when Labour realised that the budget was utterly F00ked before the last election, they did very little to fix things - why announce unpopular cuts ahead of an election? Do it afterwards. Instead why not pretend fixing the problem would be as simple as sticking 50% tax on higher earners. It was always a stupid populist, dishonest policy. ANd it was brought in before anyone else was asked to take any pain at all. Even back at 45%, taken with cuts to pension allowances and the loss of the zero rate band, my family is paying 20% more in tax than it was in 2009 (on the same income) - i.e., our after tax income has been cut by about 16%.

I don't make this point to say poor me. I know we are fortunate and need to make a chunky contribution to bailing out the country. I'm actually OK with that. I just want to challenge the idea that higher earners have not been asked to do their bit.

Agent57

Koncordski wrote:

What worries me is that people like you are drinking the Kool-Aid. :shock:

I used to live in Guyana. Quite a long way from Jonestown though. Um, and I'd left by 1978. I know, cool story.

tailwindhome

.....

TheStone

jedster wrote:

On tax allowances, please do remember that when Labour introduced the 50% rate band (was going to be 45% but they upped it) they also removed the tax free allowance for people in that band. That's right higher earners don't get ANY income free of tax.

Much like the child benefit changes, this was done in a stupid way. You start to lose the allowance at 100k, so your marginal tax rate goes from 42%, up to 62% till around 116k, then back down to 42% till 150k, then up to 47%. Strange.

CiB

PBo wrote:

Some REALLY shoddy thinking and arguing going on here.....

1) laffer curve is a theoretical model, and whilst I don't think anyone disagrees with the notion that there is a point at which high tax rates lead to less revenue, there isn't a fixed tipping point. Recent paper cited, from 2009, suggests US/Europe to the left of the maximum! ie rates could be increased without loss. Not saying this is correct or not-just pointing out that if you want to toss laffer curve in the the debate, do so properly.

Cheers. I've got better things to do these days than waste hours at work writing paragraphs of opinion that a few people will skim over, a few will ignore and one or two might openly mock or cheer at; these days I'd rather spend my time being productive during office hours. That said there's been such an inordinate amount of w@nk posted about MT and by extension this evil tory govt that it's worth lobbing in a link that says 'hang on there is another viable viewpoint'. If you want to dismiss it, go ahead. It wouldn't matter to some if verily The Lord Himself posted on here correcting some of the more laughable opinions about MT and her government, and the still-with-us consequences.

I do think that the glib phrase In It Together must be one of the Tories' most regretted phrases ever uttered, closely followed by 'actually I fancied your sister more' and 'no you sod off you mad cow', providing as it does a simple easy catch-all argument that just proves absolutely how much the tories really would like to kill the poor. It's their own version of RLJing; not much to bother about as an event but boy do the haters have something to get revved up about.

I'd estimate that there've been about 6500 pages of Thatcher-related discussion on BR this week. I'd be surprised if one person has read any of it and thought "yer know what - that fellah's right. She was a mad old trout / the saviour of us all".

Carry on.

tailwindhome

CiB wrote:

PBo wrote:

Some REALLY shoddy thinking and arguing going on here.....

1) laffer curve is a theoretical model, and whilst I don't think anyone disagrees with the notion that there is a point at which high tax rates lead to less revenue, there isn't a fixed tipping point. Recent paper cited, from 2009, suggests US/Europe to the left of the maximum! ie rates could be increased without loss. Not saying this is correct or not-just pointing out that if you want to toss laffer curve in the the debate, do so properly.

Cheers. I've got better things to do these days than waste hours at work writing paragraphs of opinion that a few people will skim over, a few will ignore and one or two might openly mock or cheer at; these days I'd rather spend my time being productive during office hours. That said there's been such an inordinate amount of w@nk posted about MT and by extension this evil tory govt that it's worth lobbing in a link that says 'hang on there is another viable viewpoint'. If you want to dismiss it, go ahead. It wouldn't matter to some if verily The Lord Himself posted on here correcting some of the more laughable opinions about MT and her government, and the still-with-us consequences.

I do think that the glib phrase In It Together must be one of the Tories' most regretted phrases ever uttered, closely followed by 'actually I fancied your sister more' and 'no you sod off you mad cow', providing as it does a simple easy catch-all argument that just proves absolutely how much the tories really would like to kill the poor. It's their own version of RLJing; not much to bother about as an event but boy do the haters have something to get revved up about.

I'd estimate that there've been about 6500 pages of Thatcher-related discussion on BR this week. I'd be surprised if one person has read any of it and thought "yer know what - that fellah's right. She was a mad old trout / the saviour of us all".

Carry on.

That's him told.

I've actually enjoyed some of the postings, though some have been downright bonkers.

May make a visit to the library and dig out some economics/history/biographical books.





We still have libraries, yeah?

DonDaddyD

Look's like the Labour OGs are coming out of the woodwork and share my (and the Labour faithful) frustration: "What does Labour actually stand for, Ed, you floundering fool?"

This got me to thinking, what is Blair's master plan? The guy is has the cunning of both Voldermort and Darth Sideous, a true Dark Lord! It wouldn't surprise me if he and his Dark Council take over Parliament and then launch the Death Star... He's come back to British politics for a reason, and not just to criticise Ed.