Budget Cuts Options

[Phil_D11102]

Yesterday the axe swung on the military. As one who took volunatry redunancy in the early 90's, I was lucky enough to find a job before I took off my uniform for the last time. The prospect of losing thousands of police, civil servants, it doesn't look good.

Cutting back on manpower whether it be in the civil service ranks, military, police, etc will just leave gaps and overwork those still in jobs. Standards will slip, which will just leave both the public and those who are to run these agencies disgruntled.

Earmarking education funding for poorer areas being paid for by those who are supposedly more affluent taxpayers is not equal, as the school curriculum should be the same across the UK. How about leveing a tax on those parents who kids don't attend schools or leave without at least C grade GCSE's in English, Math, Citizenship and Science. If you don't have a legitmate reason for obtaining those grades, then you were surely wasting taxpayer money. It then seems that these same people will be the ones on lower incomes and seeking to obtain benefits. Education is the key to success.

Now that tution fees are due to increase, what is next, paying for you children to attend pre university education?

Surely if the reason behind this is to reduce the budget defecit, then there has got to be other ways to do it. Get the banks to pay back what they owe sooner. Cut foreign aid by at least 2/3's and give only for humanitarian aid and those projects being run by allies who truly support democracy.

I am not a communist, socialist, anarchist, or even a lib dem. I am just a tax payer who wants in power those who seem to want to do the best job for EVERYBODY. Will the next winter of discontent come from the middle class?

I don't think making huge cuts in public services produces positive results. The UK is in crisis mode, and the saying is "Charity begins at home". Wasn't the third world debt was eliminated by the global powers in 2000? For a couple of years we need to close ranks and get our own house in order before we are on a footing to help others.

Again, stop sticking it to the taxpayers, and begin to look for alternative means to get the UK back on a solid footing.

[Richard Garvie]

but we aren't really in it together. A lot of what is happening is aimed at people who are worse off than me, and that's why it upsets me. People I grew up with bearing the brunt when George and Dave get to go to banquets drinking £8,000 bottles of wine.

The crisis was caused by the banks, and yes Labour bailed them out. But what if the banks had been allowed to collapse??? We would have all lost our savings. The bail outs are in the way of loans and we will recieve the cash back with a hefty return.

There needs to be changes to the way we run this county. Welfare, public spending and financial services. But they need to be well thought out, and we can't slash jobs in the current economic situation. We have already gone from strong growth in the spring to post election gloom. By going the same route as Ireland (which the IMF gave the green light to), we face ending up in the situation that they are in.

[TallDarkAndHands...]

but we aren't really in it together. A lot of what is happening is aimed at people who are worse off than me, and that's why it upsets me. People I grew up with bearing the brunt when George and Dave get to go to banquets drinking £8,000 bottles of wine.

The crisis was caused by the banks, and yes Labour bailed them out. But what if the banks had been allowed to collapse??? We would have all lost our savings. The bail outs are in the way of loans and we will recieve the cash back with a hefty return.

There needs to be changes to the way we run this county. Welfare, public spending and financial services. But they need to be well thought out, and we can't slash jobs in the current economic situation. We have already gone from strong growth in the spring to post election gloom. By going the same route as Ireland (which the IMF gave the green light to), we face ending up in the situation that they are in.

Of course Tony and Gordon never attended banquets......

Interestingly David Finkelstein in the Times writes...

"The deficit was the result of economic miscalculation (that we could go on spending because the boom would never end in a bust) and of political calculation. And the political calculation is that we - you and me - wouldn't stand for tax rises (Tony Blair) and wanted public spending rises (Gordon Brown). So we'd just have to borrow. And who can say, reviewing the politics of the past 15 years, that this calculation was wrong?

"The deficit isn't the fault of the banks. The deficit is the amount we borrow each year because we are spending more than the amount of tax that is coming in. We are not doing that to prop up the banks. We paid out to support the banks and that has left us with historical debt, but that is not the same thing as the deficit that we are incurring each year."

This would suggest that this action would have to have been taken whoever inherited this mess from the last Labour Government. Or should we fiddle whilst Rome burns?? You only have to look at the history of Labour to know that when they leave power they leave it with the Country in a Financial maelstrom. Thats why some pathetic whitehall junior ministers leave post-it notes stating 'There is no money left' for any new Government.