It seems that the 'Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, who is, in reality, no such thing, has been spouting about wanting a new tax on the rich.
This socialist claptrap, and I certainly count the Liberal Democrats as socialists, has become such a mantra of the lefties that most of them probably believe all the nonsense that goes along with it. What they won't hear, and what the political proponents won't say, is that a very small proportion of our population, 'the rich', already pay a huge proportion of the total taxes paid by our population, far more than might be considered 'fair' in any sane world.
Because their salaries and other income are high, they pay vastly more income tax and VAT than do the bulk of the population; because their houses are large, they pay the highest council taxes and they also pay more in VAT partly due to the costs of maintaining these larger properties and partly because they simply spend more on consumer goods. When they move home, they pay ludicrous amounts of stamp duty on the transactions. In short, they already pay substantially more than any reasonable person could call 'fair', and they also tend to get far less back from the state; they do not claim welfare benefits, they probably send their children to private schools and they have private health insurance, thus relieving the state of the burden of their existence.
However, in the socialist world this is simply not enough. Socialists are, by nature, hell bent on depriving the better off of whatever they have so that the state can waste it on the indigent 'poor'. The ways in which socialists define 'rich' and 'poor' is, of course, arbitrary and can be changed so that the wealthy socialists can be left out of the mix; so-called socialists such as Tony Blair and his wife, are far richer than most who will be targeted by Clegg's attack but have probably already made sure their tax arrangements will exclude them from bearing any sugnificant burden. Clegg himself is wealthy as are others in both the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties, and yet they only ever talk of 'Tory fat-cats'; why is this ?
I'm sick to death of being preached at by these hypocrites of the left and being taxed to exhaustion by governments of all hues, who are equally lacking in any finacial acumen. The answer to our current financial malaise is to cut government spending - 'cut, cut, cut', to borrow from Tony Blair, not to 'tax, tax, tax'. Governments waste vast amounts of money on all manner of pet projects and, whatever they say to get elected, none of them has ever really reduced the bureaucratic waste of the horrible state systems that we have had foisted on us over many years.
The United Kingdom is one country, so why do we need the expense of separate parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland ? Why do we need the shockingly complex rules that govern taxation and state benefits ? We have a maze of local government bodies and a vast number of quangos, so why do we need 650 MPs plus another 7 or 800 in the Lords ? Why do we need the European parliament and the huge waste created there ? Why do we need to spend £10bn on the Olympics ?
What we have is a grotesquely inefficient system, public transport, health and educations services that are, to use the current 'in vogue' phrase, not fit for purpose. To fund these, and all the other rubbish, we have excessively high taxes coupled with excessively high prices. While politicians clamber over each other to be the next to 'bash the bankers' and other perceived 'fat cats', they also use their powerful positions to feather their own nests, sometimes criminally.
Cut spending, cut taxes and really reduce bureaucracy. Why not ? Because so many people now either work for the state or are dependent on it that politicians are terrified of the resultant unemployment, poverty and likely criminality if they did this. Regardless, they need to bite the bullet and get on with it. There is no other long-term solution.
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