The public appear reluctant to embrace George Osborne's plan for even deeper cuts.
The public appear reluctant to embrace George Osborne’s plan for even deeper cuts
Three times as many people would prefer higher taxation to deeper public service cuts, according to new research.
According to polling by YouGov for the Times Red Box, 42 per cent of the public favour giving public services more money and investment even if it means higher taxes.
This contrasts with just 14 per cent who wish to prioritise reducing taxation even if it results in public services having less money.
Almost a third (32 per cent) of those questioned favour keeping the levels of tax and money spent on public services about the same.
Meanwhile according to another poll from the same data set, a slim majority favour investing more money in public services over further cuts even if it means the government borrowing more and building up more debt.
32 per cent of those questioned say the government should spend more on public services if it means a higher level of government debt, while 24 per cent say they want to reduce the amount the government borrows even if it deprives public services of money.
29 per cent want to keep the amount of money spent on public services about the same.
While the findings may on the surface cheer the left, the data is in fact open to varying interpretations.
For while according to the first poll 42 per cent favour higher public spending financed by tax rises, 46 per cent want spending kept at the same level or reduced.
Similarly with the second poll, while a third say they want to borrow to spend more on public services, over half (53 per cent) want spending to stay as it is or for there to be further cuts in order to reduce Britain’s debt.
Because the government is already engaged in a tough programme of cuts, both polls could be interpreted as a sign of the public favouring austerity.
And yet Labour can probably take more heart from the polling than the Conservatives. A large majority of those questioned in both polls are against a level of cuts greater than those currently being pushed through by the coalition, and more people favour higher public spending when set against deeper cuts in the next parliament.
In other words, a majority are in favour of the current austerity programme but an even larger majority are against further cuts if it means the erosion of public services.
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twittter
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26 Responses to “More people prefer higher spending to deeper cuts”
Mike Stallard
What austerity programme?
The national debt has doubled since Gordon Brown left office.
We really do need to reduce the debt (not the deficit) fast. At the moment, at £70 billion, annual expenditure to service the debt is double what we spend on defending our country and about half of what we spend on the NHS. (We need to pay interest on the government’s loans.) Do you really want the figure to double again and force us to cut back on all those nurses and doctors and teachers?
Who is lending us all that massive amount of money? Chinese? Arabs? Russians? And what happens when they pull the plug? Ever heard of the Suez conflict?
littleoddsandpieces
The Daily Telegraph on Monday 12 January revealed by information gleaned by pensions experts gaining Freedom of Information requests from government and formal government email seen by The Daily Telegraph, that the flat rate pension is LESS NOT MORE state pension for 2 million workers,
over half of new claimants of women born from 1953 and men born from 1951,
denied state pension payout as it is from 2013 for 7 years for a couple.
Some people are getting formal government calculations of a mere £55 per week flat rate pension (that is ar below even the current basic state pension, not the full one now), from all the conditionality that means LESS NOT MORE state pension and
NIL STATE PENSION for huge numbers
See detail at:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
Public spending does not need to rise to pay for the state pension.
Labour found out from the House of Lords Library that the National Insurance Fund is in surplus since 2013, but this is wrong because this is the non-paid-out state pensionce since 2013, payable if keep your job.
The Greens could gain the grey vote (and so the last of the people who come out to vote) if only they would have the moral courage to take from their policy website their new and unique polices and put them onto their 2015 manifesto.
These policies would:
– Pay off national debt
– End the huge rise in welfare admin by the billions
– End the billions being lost to the starving
– end starvation for all ages from yet born babes to grannies.
Austerity has never happened and national debt has risen by what the Tories have been doing, pretending to save money, when they have spent more in 5 years than 13 years of Labour.
Public spending did not cause the recession.
The failure of major private companies caused the crash of 2008.
Public spending has been rising wildly since 2010, whilst people have been starving all the more, with the huge rise in admin costs of 1 million benefit sanctions, depriving the disabled / chronic sick of any food and fuel money and the half of over 60s within the working poor on wages stagnated a decade into the past, the state pension payout to top up their pitifully low wages.
Whilst the poorest have had higher inflation in energy bills and food prices than any other income level.
The Greens end the cruel and expensive benefits admin and replace it with the far cheaper:
– universal and automatic Citizen Income, irregardless whether in work or not, for all.
– Full State Pension to all citizens, without all the conditionality that is the huge rise in cost of admin of National Insurance Fund contributions / credit history.
A supplement for each of these almost nil admin policies, for those living alone and for the disabled.
The Greens could be gaining a SYRIZA moment, who had a huge response to their Twitter election campaign.
The Greens could pass all other parties and save many lives in the winter of 2015, as without state pension and without benefit there is no access to Winter Fuel Allowance.
The Citizen Income and Full State Pension would be to the level of the basic tax allowance, which the current parliament says will be £10,600 in tax year, 2015-2016.
So why are The Greens not wanting to win big in 2015 please?
Selohesra
Trouble is the voters will vote for someone else to be taxed so that govt can spend the tax on them . That is what Labour is offering
robertcp
Voting Labour means that they are offering to pay the 50% tax rate.
Keith M
If we are to have a first class nhs, education and housing, we have to realise that these things have to be paid for. We should be looking at hypothecated taxes.