Saturday 6 November 2010

Quoting from my own manifesto

From slides 14 to 16 of this:

2009-10 figures from HM Treasury:
* Tax and other revenues: £478 billion (Excel)
* Other income, adjustments approx: £60 billion
Total income £538 billion

* Cash welfare spending: £218 billion
* Public sector salaries and pensions: £169 billion
* Money paid to private sector businesses: £281 billion.
* Interest payments: £31 billion
Total spending: £699 billion

= Deficit spending approx: £161 billion

Deficits could be eliminated by any one of the following:
* Increasing tax revenues by 33%
* Reducing public sector employment costs by 95%
* Reducing welfare and pensions by 73%
* Reducing spending on private sector procurement by 43%

The best way of eliminating the deficit would appear to be as follows:
* Keep tax revenues and welfare/pensions spending constant, and
* Reduce public sector employment costs and spending on private sector procurement by one-third.


Said is said.

7 comments:

Charlie B. said...

Right on! But hear the private sector scream! Get their snouts out of the trough? - never! you MUST be joking. It's the reason for the existence of the state and the political parties they support. Just like the middle class and university fees - it's their welfare take.

James Higham said...

The best way of eliminating the deficit would appear to be as follows:
* Keep tax revenues and welfare/pensions spending constant, and
* Reduce public sector employment costs and spending on private sector procurement by one-third.
* Withdraw from EU, BIS.
* Write off all debt to the IMF or WB henceforth.
* Start producing something again by rewriting the tax regime.

Mark Wadsworth said...

CB, that's the bitter irony. There are large parts of the so-called 'private sector' which get more taxpayers' money than either group of usual suspects. Not to be confused with large parts of the private sector that pay vast amounts of tax to subsidise the rest.

JH: "* Withdraw from EU, BIS"

There's a long list of things we could leave - EU, ECHR, IMF, UN, G7 to G20, World Bank, NATO, WTO etc.

JuliaM said...

"There's a long list of things we could leave - EU, ECHR, IMF, UN, G7 to G20, World Bank, NATO, WTO etc."

I suspect there's a few more names to add to that list. It's merely that they haven't come to prominence yet.

Alien visitor said...

OK - stop the world, I want to get off now..

Bayard said...

There are large parts of the so-called 'private sector' which get more taxpayers' money than either group of usual suspects

You weren't thinking of the "defence" industry by any chance?

Mark Wadsworth said...

JM, probably :-(

AV, you can't.

B, not particularly. The entire defence budget is about £30 billion, so if they spend half of that on 'private' sector, that's only a twentieth of all private sector largesse.