Something doesn’t quite add up here:
Political consensus says current spending at 42.5% of GDP is all the voters will stand.
OK, 42.5% of GDP.
Brown has given voters permission to go on demanding the impossible – European welfare on US tax levels.
Err, no. In the US it’s 36.4%.
You can have a look around and see that some other European countries (Spain for example) have government shares of the economy rather like the US. We in fact do not have US style levels of taxation at all: we’re much closer to the European averages. It’s also true that we don’t have a European style welfare state: because of the way we organise things, centrally, bureaucratically, we actually get less bang for our buck than many others.
No European state follows the NHS model, for example. Many have voucher schemes for education. It’s one thing to call for the State to do more (I’ll disagree but then so what?) but would it at least be possible to call for the State to look around the world and choose the most efficient methods of doing those things?
At least this cut benefits only the lowest and middle earners, giving nothing to the top 10%.
Err, you missed the bit where he doubled that rate of income tax for low earners did you?
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