... Lord Forsyth!
"Sharing the proceeds of growth" may have been a slick slogan during the boom years, but it is hopelessly ill-suited to the conditions we now face. The mantra for the public sector must be "sharing the pain".
Amen to that!
Further ...
People must be allowed to spend and save more of their own money. It is a scandal that if a couple with a young child double their household income from £100 to £200 a week they will only be allowed to keep £5 extra after tax and benefit withdrawal. A single mum can keep £6! It seems mad to require people to pay tax on low incomes and then ask them to apply to an expensive and chaotic bureaucracy to get their money back. Why not raise the thresholds and take them out of paying income tax altogether and scrap the bureaucracy, which lost £1 billion in fraud and errors last year and has made £6.6 billion in overpayments?
This is all a core part of the MW manifesto, of course, it's just nice to hear a senior Tory say it.
Stormlight
2 hours ago
4 comments:
Are you saying he advocates a basic income without saying so? They way I read it he just wants to take the poor out of tax, and abolish benefits. HE doesn't seem to realise that this implies a basic income would be necessary.
I'd like the poor to pay tax, that will engage them in the democratic process. Even if they need a large basic income to afford to pay their taxes.
M, reducing means testing and increasing the personal allowances are useful steps towards CBI (means testing and taxation are the same thing, really). Whether he is prepared to take the various further logical steps to arrive at CBI I don't know.
If you want to recruit supporters for the Citizens' Basic Income, just point out that its introduction would necessitate rather vigorous enquiries into who is genuinely a citizen.
D, I made that point in my speech at the conference and got a nice round of applause for it.
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