According to the government, we're all going to get to decide what the public spending cuts are going to be. Of course, even despite that promise, I bet that if everyone wrote in and said they thought MPs' expenses allowances should be cut then they'd suddenly decide the public shouldn't be involved afterall... but let's humour them anyway.

 

A breakdown of where the £704bn of public spending is currently going this financial year:

 

 

Social protection (Benefits, pensions etc.): £196bn

Health: £122bn (protected/"ringfenced")

Education: £89bn

Public order (Police etc.): £36bn

International development: £6bn (protected/"ringfenced")

Debt interest (interest due on current govt debt): £43bn

 

Defence/social services/housing/transport/industry/others: £210bn : where most of the cuts will likely come

 

 

The current deficit is at £156bn, and the coalition aims to half that within 5 years - therefore, around £80bn+ of cuts.

Edited June 8, 201015 yr by Danny

MP's expenses allowances would be a ridiculous thing to cut anyway. I think you'd make about £40m of 'savings' off it, and it would basically destroy representative democracy - well, for the constituencies with poorer MPs that don't happen to be an hour's journey away from London.

 

They could get a lot out of cutting the bureaucracy of the NHS, so it's a slight shame that that's ring-fenced. I'd cut Trident (which gets rid of about £2bn each year, and the big £76bn figure comes from the fact that Trident lasts 38 years, before anyone mentions it), public sector pensions (I forget precisely how much it's worth, but it's ripe for the pickings - I think it's about £40bn, so you could probably shave about £5bn off of that for the people at the top end, maybe up to £10bn in the long run), withdraw from Afghanistan (£5bn), getting rid of about £15-20bn. The government could follow that up with the sale of governmental shares in banks and repayment for the bailing out of banks to get them to their £80bn+ of cuts (that would reduce the deficit by anywhere between £80 and 100bn, depending on how much they can flog their shares for), but I have just the slightest (:P) feeling that the Conservative fetish for a small state will lead to further harsher cuts which would be wholly unnecessary...

 

The Financial Times has a cuts calculator for anyone who's interested BTW, you just have to register on the site for free to access it...

MP's expenses allowances would be a ridiculous thing to cut anyway. I think you'd make about £40m of 'savings' off it, and it would basically destroy representative democracy - well, for the constituencies with poorer MPs that don't happen to be an hour's journey away from London.

 

I wasn't seriously suggesting it. :P I was just using it as an example where the government would probably suddenly have a change of heart about getting the public involved like they're currently saying.

 

I agree with all the cuts you mentioned, and I'd also add in adding a penny to the basic rate of income tax (which would raise £4bn), axing child benefits for the better-off (the Lib Dems want to axe it for those earning £26k+, which they say would save £1.3bn; I'd prefer the threshold to be a bit higher, which would obviously save less), keeping Labour's planned National Insurance rise (£9bn), raise Capital Gains Tax to 50% (£2bn), reluctantly go for the public sector pay/recruitment freeze (£18bn), do the proposed £5bn cut to the Crossrail programme, raise the retirement age to 66 (£13bn). All very realistic, and altogether bringing the savings to around £65bn - which, like you say, is even without taking into account the sale of the govt's shares in banks, as well as the economic boost the 2012 Olympics will bring. And it's also not bringing in new tax bands for the super-rich - even a relatively modest new band of 55% for earners of over £250k could shave off a huge amount more of the deficit.

 

So it's actually very feasible to bring in these cuts without seriously harming the lowest-paid or causing unemployment. Of course, I don't expect the Coalition to follow any of this, and I expect we'll end up having public sector jobs massively cut (which would be counter-productive, as it would increase the amount of money the state pays out in benefits), benefit payments frozen (harming the lowest-paid), raising VAT and possibly even putting VAT on food (harming everyone) and seriously lowering education standards.

not sure about raising the retirement age to 66... after 40 plus years of working and paying into the system i think itll be abit cruel to make people work longer. im getting worn out and im only 53!

I'd tell you what I'd cut, and wouldn't be anything in the public sector, it would be the disgusting spend of £100 billion on the Trident nuclear program.... You know that thing the Lib Dems stood on a platform and SAID they would scrap, and then bottled out of so they could cosy up to the Boy Cameron.... <_< I dunno how the hell you can seriously talk about making "savings" in order to cut the economic deficit while this totally abhorrent situation exists... It's not as if we can even practically (or ethically) deploy Trident in the current areas of conflict in which we are involved (ie Afghanistan and Iraq). It's disgusting on another level too, we cant even equip or provide proper back up to our soldiers in terms of decent kit, the right amount of helicopters, armoured vehicles, recruiting and training the right amount of bomb disposal experts, etc, and here we are spending this money on a piece of "kit" that is of absolutey NO USE to our lads in their current theatres of operations.... It's a totally stupid situation, and one which the MOD just seems to fail to address, despite the fact that there have been several high profile resignations within the Armed Forces Hierarchy over this issue....

 

So, £6 billion of savings (an insignificant drop in the bucket) or £100 billion (a pretty subsantial cut), well, I'm no economics guru, but even I can see what the best way is looking at these figures.....

I'd tell you what I'd cut, and wouldn't be anything in the public sector, it would be the disgusting spend of £100 billion on the Trident nuclear program.... You know that thing the Lib Dems stood on a platform and SAID they would scrap, and then bottled out of so they could cosy up to the Boy Cameron.... <_< I dunno how the hell you can seriously talk about making "savings" in order to cut the economic deficit while this totally abhorrent situation exists... It's not as if we can even practically (or ethically) deploy Trident in the current areas of conflict in which we are involved (ie Afghanistan and Iraq). It's disgusting on another level too, we cant even equip or provide proper back up to our soldiers in terms of decent kit, the right amount of helicopters, armoured vehicles, recruiting and training the right amount of bomb disposal experts, etc, and here we are spending this money on a piece of "kit" that is of absolutey NO USE to our lads in their current theatres of operations.... It's a totally stupid situation, and one which the MOD just seems to fail to address, despite the fact that there have been several high profile resignations within the Armed Forces Hierarchy over this issue....

 

So, £6 billion of savings (an insignificant drop in the bucket) or £100 billion (a pretty subsantial cut), well, I'm no economics guru, but even I can see what the best way is looking at these figures.....

I echo these sentiments, and the ideas that others have come up with, but the economic crisis is being used as an excuse for the Conservatives to shrink the state back as far as they can. It's like letting the dogs off their chains. Cue the speeches by Osborne and Cameron, telling us that public spending cuts are going to be even more extensive than they orignally planned as they didn't know how dire the situation is that we are in. Yet, everyone seems to be trying to ignore the elephant in the room (Trident).

Edited June 9, 201015 yr by Daniel Gleek

As the junior partner in the coalition the Lib Dems would find it hard to insist on scrapping the replacement for Trident. However, if the response from the public is that Trident is a popular way of reducing spending, there's still hope.

 

The coalition have already set the wheels in motion to scrap ID cards so there's another saving. The forthcoming National Insurance rise should stay and Capital Gains Tax should be increased to at least 40%. The last Tory government set the rate at 40% to prevent people from disguising earnings as Capital Gains. That practice started to return when Labour reduced the rate of CGT.

 

I don't think there's a huge amount to be saved in public sector pensions. The average pension paid out is only around £4000 p.a. In a lot of cases, if their occupational pension was cut, they'd be able to claim the extra in benefits anyway so it just shifts the cost from one column to another. In general, public sector pay is lower than in the private sector and a generous pension (which public sector workers help to pay for by making contributions from their earnings) simply helps to make up for that.

 

The state pension age is going to have to increase. This process should have started 30 years ago. When the pension age was set at 65 for men, most men didn't get to age 65 and most of those who did died within a few years. Now, any man starting work is almost certain to reach age 65 and may live for 20 years or more after that. A lot of people will work for 40-45 years and then live for another 20-25 years or more in retirement. That is simply not sustainable. We need to look at ways of allowing, in particular, people aged 55-60+ who are in physically demanding jobs to switch to less demanding employment. But the same applies fro a lot of other people. I don't specially want to continue doing what I do now (particularly when it involves working away from home all week) right up to age 65 so I'd like to think I could do something else (albeit much lower paid) for the last few years of my working life.

As the junior partner in the coalition the Lib Dems would find it hard to insist on scrapping the replacement for Trident. However, if the response from the public is that Trident is a popular way of reducing spending, there's still hope.

 

The coalition have already set the wheels in motion to scrap ID cards so there's another saving. The forthcoming National Insurance rise should stay and Capital Gains Tax should be increased to at least 40%. The last Tory government set the rate at 40% to prevent people from disguising earnings as Capital Gains. That practice started to return when Labour reduced the rate of CGT.

 

I don't think there's a huge amount to be saved in public sector pensions. The average pension paid out is only around £4000 p.a. In a lot of cases, if their occupational pension was cut, they'd be able to claim the extra in benefits anyway so it just shifts the cost from one column to another. In general, public sector pay is lower than in the private sector and a generous pension (which public sector workers help to pay for by making contributions from their earnings) simply helps to make up for that.

 

The state pension age is going to have to increase. This process should have started 30 years ago. When the pension age was set at 65 for men, most men didn't get to age 65 and most of those who did died within a few years. Now, any man starting work is almost certain to reach age 65 and may live for 20 years or more after that. A lot of people will work for 40-45 years and then live for another 20-25 years or more in retirement. That is simply not sustainable. We need to look at ways of allowing, in particular, people aged 55-60+ who are in physically demanding jobs to switch to less demanding employment. But the same applies fro a lot of other people. I don't specially want to continue doing what I do now (particularly when it involves working away from home all week) right up to age 65 so I'd like to think I could do something else (albeit much lower paid) for the last few years of my working life.

But if you raise the retiring age, couldn't that have a negative knock-on effect on the cycle by having less jobs opening up for younger people, meaning that it will be harder to reduce the amount of unemployed within that age group. Population trends show that there will be less teenagers in the coming years, so the working population will decrease. Long term either way this is needed, but I think this could be a legiment concern.

 

On the point of the Liberals, it may have been something they conceded, but I still can't help but be disheartened by them simply ignoring and dropping the issue completely.

Edited June 9, 201015 yr by Daniel Gleek

I'd tell you what I'd cut, and wouldn't be anything in the public sector, it would be the disgusting spend of £100 billion on the Trident nuclear program.... You know that thing the Lib Dems stood on a platform and SAID they would scrap, and then bottled out of so they could cosy up to the Boy Cameron.... <_< I dunno how the hell you can seriously talk about making "savings" in order to cut the economic deficit while this totally abhorrent situation exists... It's not as if we can even practically (or ethically) deploy Trident in the current areas of conflict in which we are involved (ie Afghanistan and Iraq). It's disgusting on another level too, we cant even equip or provide proper back up to our soldiers in terms of decent kit, the right amount of helicopters, armoured vehicles, recruiting and training the right amount of bomb disposal experts, etc, and here we are spending this money on a piece of "kit" that is of absolutey NO USE to our lads in their current theatres of operations.... It's a totally stupid situation, and one which the MOD just seems to fail to address, despite the fact that there have been several high profile resignations within the Armed Forces Hierarchy over this issue....

 

So, £6 billion of savings (an insignificant drop in the bucket) or £100 billion (a pretty subsantial cut), well, I'm no economics guru, but even I can see what the best way is looking at these figures.....

 

I totally agree Trident should be dropped, but as Tyron said, the £80-100bn is the cost of it over 40 years - it would only shave around £2bn off the annual deficit, so it would be a drop in the ocean in terms of all the cuts that are going to be made.

What desperately needs to be cut completely is every shred of allowance and benefit for non-working people who have any more than one child - for too long, breeding has been a damn good source of income for workshy chavs - watch the birth rate absolutely plummet when ALL benefits for any further children are scrapped. After all, in what fairytale are you allowed to keep stealing from a pot you've put absolutely NOTHING into?

 

I'm completely against raising working ages, too, as has been mentioned here - surely by 65, the working person deserves a rest.

 

Also, they need to test and re-teast EVERY person claiming any form of sickness benefit - and assess what jobs these people can actually do, then set up small businesses training them back in to work, whether it be small factories or retail outlets. More stringent assessment of people on sickness benefit would see the sickening amount of people living off us pretending to be ill cut by about three quarters, I reckon. And my main bugbear is the workshy who feign some form of 'nerves or mental illness' to stay out of work - time is surely up for these lazy layabouts.

 

Also, the obvious one is taking back any MP's house that we pay for - the normal working man or woman has to commute - and so should MPs. If their constituency is in Newcastle and they work in London, impossible on a daily basis, so the government should build a form of budget hotel for them to stay in in London when needed. And ALL MPs should live IN their constituencies - if they're unable to, they should be ineligible to represent that constituency. For example, we had a Tory candidate trying their luck here.... from Hampshire?! Needless to say, she didn't get anywhere close to office.

 

Also, they need to test and re-teast EVERY person claiming any form of sickness benefit - and assess what jobs these people can actually do, then set up small businesses training them back in to work, whether it be small factories or retail outlets. More stringent assessment of people on sickness benefit would see the sickening amount of people living off us pretending to be ill cut by about three quarters, I reckon. And my main bugbear is the workshy who feign some form of 'nerves or mental illness' to stay out of work - time is surely up for these lazy layabouts.

 

And what about those people who genuinely do have a mental illness?

I wasn't seriously suggesting it. :P I was just using it as an example where the government would probably suddenly have a change of heart about getting the public involved like they're currently saying.

 

I agree with all the cuts you mentioned, and I'd also add in adding a penny to the basic rate of income tax (which would raise £4bn), axing child benefits for the better-off (the Lib Dems want to axe it for those earning £26k+, which they say would save £1.3bn; I'd prefer the threshold to be a bit higher, which would obviously save less), keeping Labour's planned National Insurance rise (£9bn), raise Capital Gains Tax to 50% (£2bn), reluctantly go for the public sector pay/recruitment freeze (£18bn), do the proposed £5bn cut to the Crossrail programme, raise the retirement age to 66 (£13bn). All very realistic, and altogether bringing the savings to around £65bn - which, like you say, is even without taking into account the sale of the govt's shares in banks, as well as the economic boost the 2012 Olympics will bring. And it's also not bringing in new tax bands for the super-rich - even a relatively modest new band of 55% for earners of over £250k could shave off a huge amount more of the deficit.

 

So it's actually very feasible to bring in these cuts without seriously harming the lowest-paid or causing unemployment. Of course, I don't expect the Coalition to follow any of this, and I expect we'll end up having public sector jobs massively cut (which would be counter-productive, as it would increase the amount of money the state pays out in benefits), benefit payments frozen (harming the lowest-paid), raising VAT and possibly even putting VAT on food (harming everyone) and seriously lowering education standards.

You already pay VAT on food. Not all food granted, but there is VAT on food.

 

Also, the obvious one is taking back any MP's house that we pay for - the normal working man or woman has to commute - and so should MPs. If their constituency is in Newcastle and they work in London, impossible on a daily basis, so the government should build a form of budget hotel for them to stay in in London when needed. And ALL MPs should live IN their constituencies - if they're unable to, they should be ineligible to represent that constituency. For example, we had a Tory candidate trying their luck here.... from Hampshire?! Needless to say, she didn't get anywhere close to office.

I like the idea of a sort of 'Boarding House of Commons', but I don't think it's all that feasible to make it a budget one - as someone pointed out during Expensesgate last year when the idea was first floated, a building full of 400+ MPs would surely be the Holy Grail of all terrorist attacks :lol: It would have to be about as Fort Knox-esque as the House of Commons themselves, and I'm not sure on the precise figures but I think someone worked out last year that it would actually cost more than the current cost of housing expenses...

You already pay VAT on food. Not all food granted, but there is VAT on food.

 

Maybe on some 'luxuries' like some chocolate for instance, but there's currently no VAT on any everyday groceries.

Also, the obvious one is taking back any MP's house that we pay for - the normal working man or woman has to commute - and so should MPs. If their constituency is in Newcastle and they work in London, impossible on a daily basis, so the government should build a form of budget hotel for them to stay in in London when needed. And ALL MPs should live IN their constituencies - if they're unable to, they should be ineligible to represent that constituency. For example, we had a Tory candidate trying their luck here.... from Hampshire?! Needless to say, she didn't get anywhere close to office.

If it's important for people that their MP lives in the constituency, they should bear that in mind when they decide who to vote for. It's not something that should be imposed by law. And what would you do if a change in the constituency boundaries meant that a sitting MP was now living just outside their constituency?

 

The rules are changing so that an MP can only claim for rent on their second hame rather than the mortgage - and rightly so. But an MP (particularly if they are a minister) may well have to spend a lot of weekends in London. Why should they not have somewhere large enough for their family to join them when they have to do that?

Maybe on some 'luxuries' like some chocolate for instance, but there's currently no VAT on any everyday groceries.

 

Putting VAT on those would surely defeat the object of VAT, it's not meant to be uniform. I'd personally come down like a ton of bricks on the private sector, I think it's disgraceful how the new government is heaping all the blame on the public sector.

Maybe on some 'luxuries' like some chocolate for instance, but there's currently no VAT on any everyday groceries.

I know it's not on all foods, i did admit that, but there is some VAT on foods.

I know it's not on all foods, i did admit that, but there is some VAT on foods.

 

But I meant I've heard they're thinking of putting it on ALL food. Quite apart from the fact it will hit the lowest-paid hardest, it will also drive inflation which will mean the Bank of England will have to put up interest rates and thus mean bank lending will again dry up (it's already starting to because of the Eurozone crisis) which could mean another credit crunch... but I guess we all knew that Cameron, Osborne and the new Chief Secretary (who, when asked on Newsnight for his qualifications for the job last night, could only say he took part in the coalition negotioans :mellow: ) are in way over their heads.

What desperately needs to be cut completely is every shred of allowance and benefit for non-working people who have any more than one child - for too long, breeding has been a damn good source of income for workshy chavs - watch the birth rate absolutely plummet when ALL benefits for any further children are scrapped. After all, in what fairytale are you allowed to keep stealing from a pot you've put absolutely NOTHING into?

 

whilst im in complete agreement with you, itll never happen, unless its phased in. even then i cant see society accepting the creation of victorian slums where fagin and his band of career theives would live in poverty. the birth rate might reduce, but itll never cease, them sub human chavs will always breed.

whilst im in complete agreement with you, itll never happen, unless its phased in. even then i cant see society accepting the creation of victorian slums where fagin and his band of career theives would live in poverty. the birth rate might reduce, but itll never cease, them sub human chavs will always breed.

Tbh, part of me is kind of inclined to just let em live in a $h!t-hole of their own making... It's disgusting to me that funding is being cut to Universities and that students actually working towards building career prospects for themselves (not to mention the absolute sh!te they have to go through to even get their loans, etc on TIME rather than three months fukkin' late <_< ) are considered a "burden" to the taxpayer, whereas these absolute SCUM who seem to breed incessantly and seem to be raiseing the next generation of muggers, burglars and car thieves are being given a "red carpet" treatment by comparison, at MY EXPENSE TOO as a taxpayer.... A friend of mine said to me about my prospects of getting a Council House when I considered putting myself on a waiting list - "you're a single bloke without a kid, you've no chance.....". Surely THAT is discrimination..... -_-

 

Nah, fukk em, if cuts are to be made, I want them to be made to the Chavs who do nothing, not to hard working students (particularly disabled students who have to overcome all sorts of adversity and STILL get mucked around by this fukked-up system...) who actually DO have some ambition....