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What would you cut from the Budget?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I fail to see how we need to be in Afghanistan, for one. If I were Cameron, I would do the following:
- Cut defence spending
- Freeze public sector wages/salaries
- Cut defence spending
- Freeze public sector wages/salaries
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Comments
What areas of defence spending would you cut?
Did you know that the public sector salaries have already been frozen, that was in the budget statement this week...
To be honest we (the british) went a long way to fucking up Afghanistan at the turn of the century.
Trident renewal's got to go. The Tories have said they're going to keep that, right? Still, hardly a controversial cut on my part; I'm not likely to piss off any of hippies with that.
Hmmm... I was definitely in favour of the new housing benefit limits that were brought in at the budget. Am I getting warmer? You could probably go further with those. Outlaying more on housing benefits that we do on police and universities combined is a bit mad. What's the new limit? A £400 a week cap on housing benefits? Someone who's claiming that is claiming marginally less in housing benefit than I take home a month in a respectable full-time job.
Funding homoeopathy out of NHS money. We still do that, right? That can fucking do one.
Cut public funding from any "faith schools" that have selective entry policies.
Stop giving that fuck-off chunk of money to the queen every year. Possibly auction off a lunch with her couple of times a year - really get the old dear earning her keep.
Legalise and tax the shit out of marijuana for the next ten years, I guess. Not my drug of choice, but it'll bring in the cash-monies.
Trident.
Trident.
Oh, and Trident.
Otherwise we lose our permanent seat on the UN security council, funny how those with permanent seats all have nuclear weapons
This trillion pound debt could of course be paid by the Queen and the folk in the city and they'd still have enough change to be stinking rich ...problem sorted.
I would remove all troops from all areas in the world, and reduce the size of the armed forces. This would cut down on logistics for one.
- Tax the 2nd home
- Increase income tax by 1% for criminal convicts (easily done by NI number)
- Ban £70 jackpot fruit machines (to help out with debt-gamblers)
- Fine petty crimes (see the prison thread)
- Limit the working week to 37 hours, so that the unemployed can apply for the difference
- Make jobseeker's allowance reduce slightly every fortnight, maybe by £1, as an incentive to get the couch potatoes back into work. Yeah it'll affect me because no one will employ me, but I don't care any more
- Banish anyone with a life sentence to exile so that we don't have to fund their upkeep
- Turn Facebook into a pay site for our gov't. Even £5 a year per person will raise millions
- Tax holiday makers who go abroad outside of the EU more than twice in any year
- Tougher criteria on immigrants
Housing benefit has gotten ridiculous, ditto incapacity benefit (note: NOT DLA).
Basically, no cuts are going to be popular. Anyone with half a brain can realise that. However that won't stem the torrent of guff that the Graun is coming out with recently on CiF.
Fair point, afterall people would just go and use a free site.
How much of a reduction in the armed forces do you think would be sufficient kira?
What happens if another bosnia occurs again, and we dont have the capability to deal with it?
Oh and what do you do with the 30,000 to 40,000 or so people who then become unemployed due to not being in the armed forces, and the jobs of the people who supply the armed forces?
You would still end up with people in bad gambling debts, even if the top jackpot was £10. A number of pubs in rural areas find that a good deal of income can sometimes be from fruit machines, played by entirely responsible people. How about we ban quiz machines too, its not gambling, but its not fair on the uneducated.
Limiting the working week to 37 hours would mean a massive amount of small businesses going bust as they struggle to cope with the extra admin required to process an influx of employees working very little hours.
Where do we banish the people with life sentences to? Wouldnt it just be easier to start killing them, thereby saving on their upkeep, and reducing the prison budget?
Taxing holiday makers who go outside europe more than twice a year? If I had the money to afford to do that, id be livid, id like to be able to go where the hell I wanted, and how would they track this? Big brother? Would other countries then ban their citizens from coming to the UK to retaliate? People would just avoid going outside of europe, the only thing thats likely to do is make other european countries richer and save the planet.
Its not to say that any of these proposals are without merit, however it does represent that there are an awfully large number of proposals that someone could claim needed doing, and would adversely affect things in this country, and then on the otherhand highlight the need to have to be ruthless and do something.
Second home (subsidise it maybe... But politicians get paid a shitload)
Politicians get paid less and don't get so many benefits. Expenses should be only to employ staff... Also, no first class travel for politicians or anybody in the public sector
Prison reform (rehabilitation programs)
I'd limit it to 32 hours
This
And this
Higher tax on tobacco
Universities to be far tougher... If you fail your first year without good reason, you can't go back for two years
Whilst I don't believe a holiday abroad is in any way a right, I think this would damage the economies of other countries and negatively affect international relations
How about a 1% special tax on mobile phone contracts. For a £50 a month contract, thats still only 50p a month. If you are spending £50 a month on a contract (without going over limits) I think you must use your phone a lot, and be able to afford it.
Im not talking about 1% on total cost of bills, im on about the agreed monthly contract amount.
People might argue that it will make people shift towards PAYG, or say that its unfair that PAYG wouldnt get taxed, however if people could only use their phones for the money they actually had, then might this go towards helping those people who end up with hundreds of pounds of contracts for going over their limit?
Think of the number of mobile contracts in the country. Including businesses.
The UK does that to some extent, especially the "real" money, at Llantrisant.
(I think you know that the banks won't stop their commercial paper enterprises. I suspect the State would collapse without it).
The moral answer would be everything.
Notwithstanding the hardship and riots that would follow that moral stance, a pragmatic (and Osbourne-topical "fair") suggestion could be a 15% year on year reduction in every department. Within a decade (due to the compounding) State spending should be below 10% of GDP.
As morality is a touch thin on the ground, I strongly suspect that suggestion is not going to happen any time soon.
Hilarious. Do you want to argue for that ludicrous claim?
Probably best not to bother, since it's so indefensible, but I would like to see you try!
Not particularly, and that has nothing to do with your subective and emotional response. It is a very long time since I argued for anything. Wasteful of one's energy if you must know.
I will make a contention that the use of force and compulsion by one human over another seems indefensible. From the words used in your reply you presumably think otherwise ?
Your reply goes some way to confirming for me that morality is thin on the ground.
First the politians, no expensives, they get paid alot anyway, and that money maybe pumped into the police, community police, NHS ect - to save jobs.
Ema - I think it should be kept, but not as high as 30 pounds a week, highest should be 15, and no bonus.
Benifits - a tighter system that would determine who needs it most - im not exactly sure whats been cut in this section this week - I think if you cant be arsed to get off your sofa and look for a job then your benifits should get lower and lower, I wouldnt really know how you would track this though, i was thinking something to do with the job centre, like you have an ID and the goverment can track when you go and such things like this.
I think benifits should be kept for the families who are working as much as they can but still get rubbish pay - like my mum, shes on her own, works as much as possible (and is always looking for a better job) and gets 8 grand a year to look after 3 kids, and to pay a crippling mortage - families like this I dont think their benifits should be effected that much.
Obviously im looking at the last point from a personal point! And also I dont really know this area very well, so please be kind
As for EMA I think it should be cut, country seemed to get along fine when school kids were not getting it.
The thing is, I mean this with no personal direction towards you, but I can guarantee that anything and everything that will get cut to aid in reducing the defecit will have people with a very good reason about why it shouldnt be cut.
Saying that, should it not be rebadged as an access to education fund for people with disabilities. No offence meant to people without disabilities, but there was a time when EMA didnt exist. If I had an unlimited (or larger) budget there would be so much I and a government could do to help a shit load of people, but as it stands this country is broke, something HAS to be done.
Yeah, I see your point. Sorry - I guess I'm fed up of all the people (not you) who seem to go on about young people on EMA spending the money on cigarettes and booze etc etc.
I'm currently looking here to try and figure it out for myself.
Now see this is an area where I think there would be better solutions for such a specialized situation. The benefits system should be providing for such a situation, and indeed does, with things like disability allowance, housing benefit and child benefit. If that's not adequate, then that's a separate issue that needs addressing. But it's not a reason for EMA to exist, which isn't targeted towards need. Similarly, if your parents aren't working, their benefits should take into account the fact that they have kids, and that should be covering your living costs while you do the course. And if your parents work but are on a low income, they can still claim tax credits while you are in full time education. All of these measures are designed to deal with genuine need. EMA is about bribing kids to stay in education, as far as I can tell. Almost everyone recognises that despite the odd case where it is a genuine help, the vast majority of this money isn't going towards meeting course costs. I did A-levels, and would've qualified for EMA if they did it when I was in college, but I can't even think of £10 a month worth of costs incurred by going to college. My cousins both received it, and most of the money ended up in Topshop amongst other high street stores. I don't think you can genuinely make a case that kids have £30 a week worth of costs above and beyond what is already supposed to be covered by the benefit and tax credit systems.
EMA was a way of convincing particularly low income kids, who are getting to that age where they want a bit of money in their pocket, of staying in education, rather than thinking short term and getting any dead-end job. And while the intentions are admirable, and I could at least understand an argument for it in from that angle, I don't think benefits should be handed out for anything other than genuine need. Incidentally, a weekend job gave most of the people I know enough to have a bit of spending money. I think encouraging and supporting businesses financially in setting up paid apprenticeship schemes would be a far more effective way of achieving the same goals.
And not only all of this, but EMA is an entirely separate entity from both the education system and the benefits system, which means you're paying for something that is unnecessary, and setting up an entirely new body to supposedly deal with issues that we already have organisations to deal with.
Anyway, on the main topic, how much d'you think we'd get for Wales and Northern Ireland?
Im the same, with the course that I have taken demands alot of money being pumped into it, I do an art course and alot of money go onto art materials, and I know theres not way that my mum would be able to give me money towards it, I always hate it when people say "oh your so lucky you get that, my parents wouldn't give me that a week" Fair enough, if your parents dont give you that a week then I see your point, but if i could choose between my family being better off, my mum having a much better job, and having no mortage between with 30 quid extra in my pocket each week, I know what I would choose in a heartbeat. /rant over.
But I wouldnt have the chance to go to uni to do something that I love, and in the next couple of years, I think alot of people will loose that opputinity = in more and more people unemployed in the future. But I do agree that the country is in a ridiculous money situation and something needs to be done now.
Can I just ask, you know how people get grants for uni depending on household income, has that been scrapped, or will be scrapped? Because thats anpother thing, if they scrap that in the next couple of years I cant go to uni any more as the city that im studying at (biringham) is stupidly expensive to live in (accomodation wise) and theres no way I can live there without a grant.....
I can tottaly agree, i know alot of people who did a-levels (course that meant that they didnt need to alot of equipment) who spend their EMA on booze, fags, going out, I think (and I have said this before in a thread about EMA a long time ago) it should be put down to what type of course your on, I think if your on a Art based course you should get slightly more ema than people on a ICT based course purely down to the materials needed for it, when I was at college i could easily spend £30 on art materials a week at a start of a project......but then I think people would think that the goverment would be favouritism course.....
I never had to buy any books in college, and I did IT. They had enough text books for everyone to borrow. My original opposition to EMA was actually the fact that university students generally have much higher costs, and if anyone should be getting assistance, it should be them. I thought that if that money could be used for anything, then uni students should be first in line. Although we probably can't afford it for either any more.