Balls doesn’t seem to understand how the Laffer curve works.
Labour could raise taxes for hundreds of thousands of middle-class professionals after the next election by lowering the threshold for the 40p rate, Ed Balls has suggested.
Okay, here’s how it goes. I am not – repeat, not – going to pay these cunts 40% of any part of my income. It isn’t going to happen. If they reduce the rate that this vile robbery kicks in, I will work less.
In an interview the shadow chancellor repeatedly refused to rule out changing the point at which the higher rate of tax kicks in, saying he had to be “honest” with the public that there was still a £90 billion deficit to pay off.
There are two ways you can manage debt. You either reduce your outgoings or increase your income. Ed Balls-for-brains seems only to appreciate the latter option. Far better to slash spending. I can give a few starters for ten. Close all unnecessary government departments. Cancel all bloated government IT projects designed to monitor us. Stop all spending on foreign aid. Cease funding quangos, fake charities and special interest groups, indeed, stop all third sector spending entirely.
When you’ve done that, I’ll find some other areas for making cuts – and I mean real, meaningful cuts, not the namby-pamby pretend cuts that the coalition indulged in. I mean slash and burn type cuts that really reduce the size of the state, because if we are to tackle the deficit, that is what is needed, not stealing even more of our money to fund the largesse of the political class.
I think that they should look especially at those departments which make business and life more difficult than it needs to be, and especially the EU and all its works.
Oh, the opportunities for cuts are legion.
Perhaps paying all public sector workers a net wage might save a considerable amount of money. At least 50% of the tax officials could go along with a large number of wage departments. They are after all just juggling imaginary money.
Cut all renewable energy subsidies. Stop all art and sport funding, user pays. Stop giving disproportionate funding to Scotland for health and education. Cut the number of politicians.
These are all great ideas – and that’s why they won’t happen. The typical PPE graduate / professional fantasist wouldn’t know a great idea if it bit him in the arse.
Since the fucker Brown lowered all the interest rates and then the fucker Osborne decided on ‘help to buy’ which lowered them even more, it’s unlikely I will be able to achieve even iBalls lowered threshold.
Nevertheless, here we go again. More stealth taxes before we’ve even had a vote. Same old Labour. Let Labour in and all the pain of the last 5 years will have been for fuck all. Worryingly, the general public is just stupid enough to do so…
For a number of people on the Left, it is not a case of not understanding the Laffer Curve, they just do not accept the effect occurs.
They assume people will respond to higher taxes with an income effect, that is they will work more to replace the tax lost. This then leads those Lefties to conclude that higher tax rates will lead to increased tax receipts as people are forced to work more, to earn more and thus pay more tax. They are encouraged in this belief because in the short term tax receipts do go up.
They completely overlook the substitution effect whereby people join the Soddit Club when they realise earning more is not worth it because due to the taxation they end up with less than the effort required to earn it, so chose to do other things with their industry.
This leads to a fall in tax revenue which only motivates the Loony-Left to demand tax rates must go up.
In the 1970s, top rate was 83% with a super tax of 15%, meaning a marginal rate for ‘the rich’ of 98%. As one of ‘the rich’ remarked at the time, the Government was saying to them, Leave the Country… which of course they did.
The problem is, the current political claque is ahistoric. If high taxes on the rich and companies was the answer, as well splashing lots of cash on ‘the poor’ and ‘public services’, why was it necessary to call in the IMF in the late 1960s and why did the UK economy circle the drain during the 1970s?
“As one of ‘the rich’ remarked at the time, the Government was saying to them, Leave the Country… which of course they did.”
As did I. Not because the tax rates were quite that bad, but because I didn’t appear to be getting value for money. Unlike the 1970s, it’s surprisingly easy to relocate these days.
A country is just a special kind of corporation. (“Special” as in “special needs”, in some cases I could mention.) Blind loyalty to a colourful logo nailed to a stick is, like, soooo 20th Century!
Fuck the laffer curve, Ed Balls must be the only graduate from Harvard who doesn’t even understand what a profit & loss account is.
He knows how to fill his mortgage expense forms in, mind…
John don’t you realise that in Ed Ball’s mind is that profit and loss is something that happens to the lower orders and is not something that he has to consider.
I realise that Ed Balls pontificates on taxes and austerity with the kind of confidence that only someone who knows none of it will ever affect his own wealth generation can provide.
Ronald Reagan has some wonderful quotes to his name as regards the intrusion of government. Margaret Thatcher swept into Downing Street on a manifesto to hack away at the Civil Service. Both failed. David Cameron promised us a bonfire of the quango’s, that was a damp squib. It will require more than the above great people to bring meaningful change. Right now, none of the contenders merit more than one single vote, assuming that they vote for themselves.