Fun Online Polls: Tomorrow's Budget & Market Forces

This week's Fun Online Poll relates to tomorrow's Budget. The Lib-Cons have trailed all sorts of ideas, which may or may not happen, but top of the 'likely' list are increasing the rate of VAT and only partially reversing Labour's planned increase in National Insurance contributions; but to soften the blow (for homeowners and landlords at least), they are going to use part of the proceeds to freeze Council Tax (i.e. cut it in real terms).

Of course, they peddle the myth that 'my Council Tax pays for local services': "The Conservative manifesto proposed a two-year council tax freeze paid for by reducing spending on government consultants and advertising" but then promptly admit that the "... plan involved providing extra funding to councils who proposed only small council tax increases, so they could then freeze them."

Or to put it another way, if there's money to be saved at local council level (and I am sure there are oodles of savings to be made), then Whitehall grants (out of general taxation) to local councils can be reduced accordingly, and those savings could be used to cut VAT and National Insurance instead.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll:

How would you keep the economy going and deflate the house price bubble?
Increase VAT and National Insurance and cut Council Tax.
Increase Council Tax and cut VAT and National Insurance.
Other, please specify.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.
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A big thanks to everybody who took part in last week's Fun Online Poll, results as follows:
Market forces are...
A Good Thing - 76%
A Bad Thing - 7%
A Good Thing, as long as they don't apply to land- and homeowners - 7%
Other. Please specify - 9%

I'm glad to see that only a small minority thought that land- and home-owners should be isolated against market forces - one of the 'killer arguments' against Land Value Tax is of course that it would be somehow wrong for land- and home-owners to be subjected to the same system of price rationing* as tenants and potential purchasers.

* As we know, price rationing is the best form of rationing; and in this country it is to a large extent the NIMBYs doing the rationing, which drives up rents and selling prices, but of course it is 'somebody else' who has to bear the extra cost.