[ViaxobbimeVar]

It has to happen. Anyone going around saying "OMG IT HURTS POOR PEOPLE HARDER" are just pandering to those who don't want to admit that their country can't actually survive whilst requiring others to pay for their lives.

Political courage

Pandering

[geasurpacerma]

[VQdeochratis]

Child benefit will be frozen for three years, public sector pay frozen and 25% cut from government department budgets. Cut public sector pay 50 percent, Government department budgets 50 percent in a year, and you'll close the deficit. Austerity? Hah. You aren't even cutting government sector pay at all.

[WrigleyMike]

20% VAT?

Jesus ****ing Christ, what a shithole of a country.

[Inettypofonee]

I went to university in the north (Durham, which isn't a bad university if you want to spend 3 years drunk).

I can confirm it is a shithole though. Some parts of it need nuking,or at the very least fencing off and turned into prisons.

[Sopzoozyren]

Does Obama complain about this too?

[ttoothh]

Re Kraut spending cuts he complains (so it's reported) they hindering the recovery of everything. I wonder if we can put some of the blame on the UK now

[LorencoLoricelli]

What will they cut in the US to get deficits under control?

[FallJimerks]

What will they cut in the US to get deficits under control?

If I recall correctly, you could pretty much eliminate our budget problems by eliminating social security and medicare (for all but the poor, then it becomes basically welfare) and getting rid of the new healthcare law.

Other things to get rid of: The tax deductions for housing and insurance.

[iH1wMOhE]

Unfortunately I have too many valuable skills to make it as a parasite

Yes this particular tax increase hits the poor the hardest but the overall tax burden in Britain I suspect is much greater on the rich as it is and if it is anything like the US then the middle class is certainly not paying its fair share of taxes. You've got a majority of people basically legalizing theft from a minority of people with retarded crap like middle class subsidies. The idea of middle-class people categorically needing financial aid is laughable.

You need to experience poverty. It'll help fill in the areas of missing humility- a condition sadly all-too-common in privileged kids riding the coat-tails of the ancestors who actually made the breakthrough, and mistakenly thinking this gives them some sort of nobility.

[bestonlinepharmasy2]

You mean you're not from an affluent background, Kuci's brother? Are you the poor sibling who lives in the cellar like Cinderella?

[Ngdyoysv]

I dunno, paying 6/5ths seems like a rather large markup to me.

Then again I probably should be considering the fact that this means they take less from my paycheck.

[Grewlybreekly]

how is it absurdly high if you don't have as much taken directly from your paycheck?

Edit: Oh, regression? Hmm. Isn't there a way to make VATs progressive?

Edit 2: Wait a minute how is it regressive at all? You pay based on your consumption. Rich people earn more and therefore consume more...you pay the same percentage of your income. It's not progressive OR regressive.

Edit 3: Unless you consider that an additional dollar could have less marginal value than previous dollars...argh I'm confused. Someone clarify please

[Zavdpacq]

It's absurdly high for a VAT. Or it should be considered as such.

Is this going to be a lecture on regressive taxes?

Or are you going to say it's proportional, so that's why it rules?

Why are you outraged at the thought of a 20% VAT but not a 16.67% earned income tax?

[elects]

Why are you outraged at the thought of a 20% VAT but not a 16.67% earned income tax?

No one's given me the opportunity to be outraged at at 16.67% earned income tax.

[Badyalectlawl]

That is a misleading concept and ignores the fact that people's incomes are not flat through their lives.

[Soassesaisp]

Investment is deferred consumption.

[mashabox]

Investment is deferred consumption.

But the investment increases in value (typically). They're earning extra money by deferring the consumption, capitalizing on it if you will...

BTW, how much of Bill Gates' tens of billions of dollars of investment do you figure go to US sales tax?

[Qzmsdoem]

The US doesn't have a sales tax. States have sales taxes.

[DailyRingtone]

The other thing to remember is that the tax burden on various interest groups is only tangentially related to their marginal tax rates...

For example, it's not obvious that a tax on capital gains falls disproportionately on investors...