March 3rd budget. What should Rishi do to balance the books ?

[Milzy]

Double VED. Job done.

 

[Once a Wheeler]

Fund the development of sub-critical nuclear power plants for merchant ships and make them obligatory for all ships delivering to the UK. Extremely profitable and a massive help in the battle against CO₂ and particulate emissions.

 

[vickster]

Double VED. Job done.

And levy VED on every vehicle that uses the roads, none of this zero VED malarkey, all cause some level of damage to environment be it through emissions, the generation of electricity, their manufacture etc

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Reinstate the inflation increases for fuel duty. It’s been frozen for over 10 years and the c£90Billion that would otherwise have been raised could have come in really handy right about feckin’ now.

 

[All uphill]

Reinstate the inflation increases for fuel duty. It’s been frozen for over 10 years and the c£90Billion that would otherwise have been raised could have come in really handy right about feckin’ now.

Yes!
Freeze any new road construction plans - we may not need them.

 

[mjr]

And levy VED on every vehicle that uses the roads, none of this zero VED malarkey, all cause some level of damage to environment be it through emissions, the generation of electricity, their manufacture etc

Wouldn't you impose some threshold so that the cost of collection doesn't exceed the revenue? I strongly suspect an appropriate bike VED might be too low to be worth collecting.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Absolutely nothing.

There is no need to balance the books now, it would be exactly the wrong thing to do. We're in a crisis and have historically low interest rates.

With the sole exception of the austerity of 2010 and onwards, previous recessions' debt has been ameliorated with borrowing, then taxes, then spending cuts meaning the richest pay more. 2010, there was a decision to use the crisis to try and fundamentally change the country by paying with spending cuts up front, but not raising taxes, thereby pushing costs onto the poorest in society in an effort to reduce the size of the state.

It didn't go well.

So pleased to read this response. People tend to equate state spending to household spending and balancing the books. 2 different thinks. Fundamental difference between accountants and economists. And to think Keynes got it right and interestingly the Commonwealth including OZ, NZ, Canada etc follow the same principles. Hopefully Rishi goes Keynesian.

 

[Chris S]

Take out a massive loan and pay it back over 180 years, like they did when slavery was abolished.

 

[FishFright]

Emperor Gordon Brown and Prince Blair also have a public record of doing just this. Now, I'm not very sophisticated when it comes to adversarial party politics (which I believe to be repsonsible for so much political and economic damage over the centuries) but even so, I'm pretty sure they weren't Tories.

Politicians at any level see it as perk. The difference this time is the companies getting the bungs are not even supplying the objects and services billed for and some of the companies has a few hundred pounds and no history of trading.

 

[clid61]

FTFY

Nosher for PM

 

[Gunk]

How about cancel HS2?

it is looking rather obsolete before it’s been built.

 

[Milzy]

Money saved from cancelling the HS2 can go towards digging that tunnel from U.K. to Northern Ireland. Might just see it before I die. Then again I doubt it.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Sell Scotland to the highest bidder.

 

[slowmotion]

I think that anybody I happen to disagree with politically should be subjected to absolutely punitive taxes. Who cares if they cost more to collect than they raise? What matters is that they are vindictive.

 

[stephec]

As long as he leaves booze, fags, and petrol alone The Sun will say he did good.