A reasonable, reasoned even, description of the New Labour Project:
Between 1997 and 2003, there was a 63 per cent
increase in public-sector spending yet most of it was swallowed up by
inflation in the sector, leaving a "real"increase of just 16 per cent.
Official statistics, before they were "revised", showed that productivity in health and education had fallen.
In
Increases in coerced funding can only come from decreases in freely spent money.
The wealth has been squandered.
The wealth creators have been punished enough to change their ways.
“An NAO report last year said that a one per cent improvement in the use of the £1,447 billion allocated to departments between 2004 and 2007 would release £14.5 billion for front-line services or allow basic rate tax to be cut by at least 4p.”
Really? Income tax only raises £1bn per 1p per year? That can’t be right.
I’m also sceptical about other figure used, and the suggestion that it is because it is the public sector. In the NHS the ONS found productivity growth was zero or very slightly negative; this still means that real output was basically as much higher as real spending. Such a performance is not bad in the healthcare industry, for example in the (more free market) United States value added per worker in the health industry fell 25% between 1982 and 2002.
Leave a Reply