Polly Toynbee, commenting on the cap on Housing Benefit and rent increases in social housing:
Do they know what they are doing? Are they incompetent bunglers or do they mean to clear low earners out of the country's prosperous districts? As some residents since time immemorial are driven away – with maybe a few picturesque pearly kings and queens among them – this will become a cut that brands this government. Perhaps they think nobody will notice the new ranks of rough sleepers...
This month people who lost their job have had their help with mortgage interest payments cut in half. Expect more arrears and repossessions. Next year housing association and council rents will rise from their present heavily subsidised rents to 80% of the market rent for new tenants – about £100 more a week. New social housing will no longer be available to the poorest, but only to those who can pay high rents.
1. Water off a duck's back, frankly, same old same old. You get exactly the same whining and moaning if you suggest replacing as many taxes as possible with Land Value Tax.
2. I try to be intellectually consistent: the best and most natural source of revenue for 'the State' is ground rents, whether that is income from Crown Estates; increasing rents in social housing to cover the location rent as well as just the bricks and mortar rent; or making owner-occupiers pay ground rent to 'the State' (i.e. Land Value Tax) rather than them paying it to the bank via their mortgage interest.
3. It's just that the traditional lefties are against social tenants having to pay for the value of what they get from 'society in general'; and traditional right-wingers (i.e. Home-Owner-Ists) are against owner-occupiers or landlords having to pay for the value of what they get from 'the State' (while both sides appear to be happy with the idea of workers and businesses paying 'rent' on the value of their own efforts and enterprise, i.e. income tax, VAT etc).
4. 'Society in general' is 'the State'.
5. Replacing the entire tax system with Land Value Tax would merely speed up the process whereby houses in desirable areas are acquired by people with high incomes and vice versa. Hardly a revolutionary vision, is it? And for lower income people, the blow would be greatly cushioned by the Citizen's Income they receive - in economic terms, they would be receiving ground rents from the high income people who have displaced them ('the State' collects the ground rents on behalf of 'society in general').
What's not to like?
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Shroud Waving
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8 comments:
I wonder what thoughts pass thorough her mind when she is writing phrases like "heavily subsidised"?
By whom?
I wonder if a generalisation I make might be true? Those who never had any contact with mathematics (like Toynbee) during their education are not familiar with the concept that is so familiar to those who did:
The equals sign has got two sides to it
Clearly MW (he says ironically)you're talking bollocks, see
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/
(oh priceless. wv = doodog)
MW
"What's not to like?"
The problem is that - as with "green" taxes - LVT (were it ever applied) would, in the end, be applied as an addition to, not a replacement for, all the other taxes. We're dealing with professional politicians here. By and large, they have no honour and no principles except the principles of "me first" and getting and retaining power and the money that goes with it. This is not an argument about the merits of LVT, this is an argument about political realities. As long as the benefiterati retain the vote the politicians will pander to them.
Even now, for the first time since, I think, Brown became PM the Populus poll is showing Labour ahead of the Conservatives (not, I grant you, ahead of Con + LibDems combined) and ICM is showing Lab neck and neck with the Cons. Now why should that be and how are the policians going to react? First, spurious "cuts" have been announced, then immediate talk of watering down even those cuts leading to more immediate borrowing and/or more taxation and, inevitably, more taxation in the medium/long turn. LVT would be a welcome addition to the state's arsenal of tax weaponry. That's why, for instance, the insurance premium tax (brought in by Ken Clarke in 1994) was welcomed by all sides of the Commons: it opened up a whole new area to tax: so with LVT.
OP, yup, always good to compare like-with-like.
L, the comments to that are a joy.
U, "The problem is that - as with "green" taxes - LVT (were it ever applied) would, in the end, be applied as an addition to, not a replacement for, all the other taxes."
True. But worst case, if we had both, politicians would soon realise that if they reduce 'other taxes' by £1, LVT receipts would go up by (say) £1.05 (or a 'guinea', in old money).
So, in the face of stiff resistance from The Home-Owner-Ist coalition, a reasonably enlightened or rational government would gradually shift to LVT anyway, i.e. turn the clock back two centuries.
MW - They've deleted my 'you're talking bollocks' (put more politely) comments!!!
MW
"a reasonably enlightened or rational government"
Oh God please bring us one in my - or even my grandchildren's - lifetime.
L, that's 'freedom of speech' Guardian style.
U, that's why you're in the Bloggers Cabinet :-)
Maybe I am impossible optimistic, but I do believe that step by step we are heading in the direction you desire.
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