How much could the UK actually raise from higher taxes?
As the UK contemplates an approaching budget, we only have to go outside and look at the potholes in the road, or the queues at our local hospital, to realise that there are many areas where the national finances are struggling.
It's well known that, though it's politically easy to impose an extra tax burden only on the wealthy, this doesn't actually raise much money. But what would? The wonderful Hannah Ritchie, of course, has run the numbers.
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Hannah mentions National Insurance. Rachel Reeves put up National Insurance not understanding that the money is paid into the National Insurance Fund which is already solvent and didn't need higher contributions. The Treasury can't drawdown on the £100bn surplus in the Fund without changing the law (but it hasn't changed the law). This obviously has cost jobs and damaged business.
So why mention National Insurance in this article, or perhaps she didn't realise, like Rachel Reeves, that this is ring-fenced, and won't solve our £3tn debt issue? Basically, we need to reduce spending, not continue to increase taxes. Unless, like Burnham, you really do want to go back to the 1970s, with power-cuts, Healy going to the IMF for a bailout, etc. etc.
Thatcher said it best: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” Sadly, I don't think the Fabians have ever learned this. They would rather us all be poor, as long as we're equal.
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