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Why I’m quitting the Conservative Party – politicalbetting.com
Why I’m quitting the Conservative Party – politicalbetting.com
A majority Conservative government will guarantee:? No rise to Income Tax? No rise to National Insurance? No rise to VATHelping you and family keep more of the money you earn. #VoteConservative pic.twitter.com/Ja0vm0JRrm
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(OK I know it's not just residential care but...)
(Copied from last thread so this thread is visible.)
That's a powerful piece.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/09/07/whipped-line-inside-cabinet-meeting-crushed-tory-tax-rise-rebellion/ (£££)
This carries the implication their careers will be ended if they vote against, a trick Boris pulled to purge his critics in the last parliament.
What Philip describes in the header, which he is essentially correct about, cannot last - those who are employed will eventually become aware of the fact that they are being ripped off.
What the article doesn’t say is that what we are seeing is (yet another) purely cynical political judgement, based on people not understanding national insurance and those enjoying significant unearned income mostly voting Tory. It is the latest of a series of such decisions, and not an aberration of approach.
Johnson has managed to create a social care plan that essentially has no plan for social care.
No government should simply be out to “fix” social care – they must transform it. Progressives have rightly long been championing the creation of a “national care service” or a “national independent living service”, along the lines of the NHS: free at the point of use, universal coverage, with well paid and trained care staff at its heart. We shouldn’t apologise for demands for universal care on the grounds that it’s “too radical”. This is exactly what the scale of the crisis calls for – and we should be as proud of the principle as for the NHS.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/07/boris-johnson-social-care-plan-prime-minister-disabled-people-care-workers
I think the recent decision to raise taxes would be much more persuasive if there weren't so much unnecessary spending going on. But any government worthy of support would be axing that before increasing taxes.
Also it is bizarre that gambling winnings, for example, aren't taxed while income from productive employment is.
In practice, of course, there may not be much difference in the long run.
I think a better distinction is between "luxury" taxes that penalise largely voluntary activities, e.g. those on tobacco or alcohol, and those on things you basically have to do, like earning money. Of course there are many shades of grey (e.g. stamp duty - does one have to buy a house?) but I'd always prefer to whack up luxury taxes.
Which is of course, as those commentators said, is what an increase in NI or whatever the 'new' tax is going to do.
Yes, there will be some effect on share incomes, but not to the same extent. And how does it help Care suppliers to balance their books?
I suspect that, as a 'popular' measure, this will very soon unravel, and the fact that there is to be a vote of confidence on it as soon as tonight suggests that No 10 realises this.
One thing perhaps worth considering is what effect this will have on productivity. Reagan placed reducing taxes on income to incentivise work at the heart of his changes, reasoning that if he couldn’t be bothered to work because all his extra income was taken in tax, nor did the lighting man, or the sound man, or the tea lady (I think those were his examples). And there you have trickle down theory.
We come here to perverse incentives. If working productively doesn’t pay, will people still be willing to work those extra hours? Or will they look to reduce them? Might that in itself nullify the effect of an increased tax?
To pick up the most striking thing in your header though, it also seems to me absolutely crazy that combined NI is actually a higher figure than income tax. I mean - seriously?
It will mostly be soaked up by prices and inflation, and the rest will be pissed up the wall, so the extra tax will just crowd out more of the productive economy and suppress people's standard of living.
And, as was said on the previous thread, it won't be the end of it. I expect this precept will increase several times further in the years to come.
Pollution is the obvious one.
But alcohol (which I'm fond of) should also be taxed because it:
(a) results in more road accidents than would otherwise be the case
(b) probably lowers worker productivity on the day after a big night out
(c) is associated with quite a lot of criminal behaviour
and
(d) results in injuries (from cirrhosis to beer wounds) that the NHS has to pay to clean up
Likewise, a home sitting empty should be taxed, because the cost of insufficient accommodation is felt across the whole population. I'd rather tax someone who didn't rent out an apartment, than someone who did.
Work, on the other hand, is generally good.
Work gives people structure. People in work are less prone to depression or illness. They derive self worth from making an economic contribution to society.
We want as many people to work as possible.
Perhaps we should pay people more if they work. Some that say that this is a subsidy to employers. Maybe it is. But I reckon the benefits to society of more people working massively outweigh the costs. Wouldn't it be great if everyone* worked, and everyone felt they were doing something useful?
And wouldn't the economic output of the country be greater if everyone (or almost everyone) was generating economic output. Wouldn't it be better if Fred Smith (who's not the brightest and can only manage £3.50 of economic output an hour) was actually in work? And you know what - if he's in work, it's possible his output will rise, while if he's sitting at home watching the Price is Right, that's never going to happen.
Simply, isn't it time to start subsidising work, not taxing it?
* Yeah, yeah, I know some people can't work. But... maybe they can...
Spielman, Gibb, Williamson, Patel, Raab, Wormald…
As you can imagine neither of us are happy about it.
At some point, to recover the massive largesse of this government to keep people employed - which has very largely worked - we are ALL going to be hit. I am sufficiently sanguine to think that election pledges made before Covid come with small print that says "all subject to not being hit by a once in a century pandemic we have to pay for....".
That said, I'm sorry to lose Philip. We'll work hard to win him back - I presume from the Can't Be Arsed Party, rather than some other domestic political offering which meets his concerns - and is currently not out there.
I think the calculations are complete bollocks.
You cannot include employers contributions in an employees real marginal tax rate.
You can't deduct an employers contribution to arrive at net wages either.
Credit to Phillip for being brave enough to write the thread but when you look at the calculations yesterday's announcement makes a tiny change.
Using his own flawed methodology as gospel the rate before yesterday was still 47.3%
And it's trivially obvious that you must. Otherwise governments would simply never tax income at all, and simply charge employers.
To avoid a crush given covid, German hotels ration breakfast allocations typically in hourly blocks. But, being German, every single person who has booked 7-8 arrives at 7 on the dot, the same at 8. And so their system is creating precisely the covid crush every hour that they are trying to avoid. After the half hours the place is deserted.
This is throwing yet more into NHS's maw yet not addressing the shocking state of the nation's finances due to the pandemic - so more to come.
Perhaps concentrating on NI gives the Chancellor room to raise income tax at some point, but I would think after the next GE?
- the scale of the homeless problem in the big cities I visited (in particular SF, LA, Portland and Seattle) is truly shocking. There are shantytowns of a few dozen or so camping tents set up in parks or along roads or freeways and the city governments take weeks or longer to clear them. And in Portland and Seattle in particular, the police seem to have given up enforcing the law around those areas, on the grounds that jailing the homeless "will just make the problem worse" - though if non-homeless jaywalk or something that will raise money for the city, they're onto you quickly enough. I was in Mexico before I headed north, and the homeless were far more numerous and visible in the US - the reverse of my last visit to both countries a couple of years back.
- America is expensive to eat in - this is a trend that dates back a couple of decades at least. Limited competition in supermarkets and a government in hock to farmers even more than ours is, together with a strong dollar and general inflation has meant that even eating the crap that poor Americans have to consume is expensive, and eating even moderately well is eye-poppingly so compared to Europe.
- the scale of pollution caused by wildfires in the west is literally eye-watering. It wasn't so bad in LA, but I have spent time in Beijing, Delhi and Kathamandu and never experienced worse air quality than in Reno (it was 300-400 while I was there - described as hazardous). Portland was bad too.
- the debacle in Afghanistan has ended or at least greatly diminished the halo effect that Biden had in liberal America for disposing of Trump.
- mask wearing is much more strictly enforced in the big cities than it ever was in the UK, while in the small towns and rural areas, it is pretty lax.
- to judge by yard signs and bumper stickers in the big cities, BLM is still a live issue. And to judge by the same (and casual conversations) in small towns, the allegedly "stolen" Presidential election is too.
- there is a stunning property boom, resulting in an incredibly tight market, especially in SF and LA. One of my friends offered more than 10% over asking on 8 properties in LA before he managed to buy one, and in seven of those he wasn't even in the top ten. Bizarrely, the used car market is similarly hot.
(OK, they all come across as moans, but it was a great trip and I'm glad I went).
Almost none of the money that they hope to raise is allocated for social care
What this will do is transparently fail to fix social care just nicely in time for the next election.
The latter will be far more important in the long-term.
An opportunity missed.
It's electorally fixed, of course its not sorted in reality.
But it's a much smaller issue for the next election and ultimately what matters to politicians ??
The devil is in the detail though. I note that there is no change in how Social Care is funded until October 2023, and in the meantime current arrangements prevail. The £86 000 cap is roughly 3 years of Social Care at current prices, so will only benefit people after October 2026 or thereabouts, so well after the next election.
The campaign on waiting lists is needed, but cannot really start until operating staff and anaesthetists are freed from working in ICU. In the meantime waiting lists will continue to pile up.
So pay more, get nothing.
America is a wooded country. Forest fires happen. Forests grow until they burn. The longer you keep them from burning, the more organic material there is, and the greater the fires.
Over tens of thousands of years before humankind, the forests grew, there was a spark, and they burnt, and new forests arose from the ashes.
The big change has been that we now aggressively attempt to prevent forest fires spreading. This means that over decades massive quantities of dried organic material accumulates.
There is no way to avoid this stuff, given the climate, ending up in flames. The issue is that public policy (no fires, ever) makes things worse, not better.
Talking of which, what's the likely impact on the economy of this? Even if it's necessary, isn't the general rule tax increases → less economic growth?
How anyone thinks this is right is beyond me.
But it won’t be.
This has been sold as a tax rise and reform to fix social care.
So when it fails to do that, it will blow up in Johnson’s face.
And it will have noticeably failed to just before the next election.
Is that really the best moment to look like a stupid, short-sighted, dishonest complete prat?
And moreover that’s the perfect time for Labour to unveil their own proposals.
Social care reform destroyed Theresa May’s career. Would almost be poetic justice if it did the same to Johnson were the consequences not so serious.
Tight markets are a by-product of the money that the working and generally better off have saved from a year of not spending.
It would be pedantic to point out that a strong $ makes imported food cheaper, or to wonder whether anyone ever takes a bumper sticker off their car?
https://ukhcablog.com/blog/health-and-social-care-levy-ukhca-view-on-government-announcement-about-funding-for-health-and-social-care/
But is that true of someone who isn't producing any economic output at all?
I'm not trying to make workers work 100% of the time, I'm trying to make 100% of people workers, even if only for five hours a week.
If someone paints in their spare time, that's not work. If they sell the painting, were they working?
I think this is why the issue is so tricky.
Of course I look at fully loaded costs (including cars, desk space, utilities etc) in making decisions on hiring. But that’s not the same as saying employer NIC is a tax on wages
Now Johnson is taxing the hell out of workers to bung his client groups and BJO is backing him perhaps they’ll finally believe me.
Have a good day.
It does seem a fairly progressive change.
Someone earning £1m pa will pay £12,500 more tax every year.
Regarding dividend income, I'm not clear how this will be transferred into the social care levy fund and what checks and balances will exist to ensure this happens.
The danger for Labour is if any Tory PM can get away with tax rises, it's @BorisJohnson.
#WaughZone
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/will-boris-johnson-defy-the-odds-again-with-his-tax-hike-gamble_uk_6137d1fbe4b0eab0ad9e8ced?8ap
Or does the laffer curve only apply to Labour policies?
I think a variety of sources will continue to be tapped as we saw yesterday- eg the amount on Council Tax per annum raised from "Adult Social Care Precept" is heading towards a billion a year, even though it is voluntary.
So the £86k cap is in reality going to cost at least £172k. I think that is a long way away from Dilnot
On the imported food point - America is much more self-sufficient in food than we are. So a stronger $ will indeed lower imported food prices, but less so than here. In addition, of course, you have to allow for protectionism, and the fact that the final price of food is often a relatively small component of the price one pay in a supermarket.
The bumper stickers point is a good one.
And if its happening here but not showing up in the polls distrust the polls.
Tories, in short.
For many, many people the only asset they amass is the family home, prudently brought and paid for with their hard-earned over their lifetimes. The financial achievement of their lives. That this should be taken away in a care-home lottery whereas others who have no such asset gets their costs paid by other taxpayers (so the home-owner is in effect paying twice) is the source of much indignation and genuine upset.
I can see both sides of this. The proposals yesterday (which are basically Dilnot's) try to steer a middle path.
However on the downside we have:
On care:
Very little of the money goes to social care
People in need of social care don't benefit til after the election, by which time another new system might be voted in and they still might not benefit.
There is no plan to address staff shortages in social care.
There is no plan to support the 9m voluntary carers in the UK.
On process:
The cabinet did not know about the proposals until yesterday morning, yet today there is a 3 line whipped vote to decide some of the biggest changes in a decade. This is not parliament taking back control but being servile and by passed. It is a terrible way to run a country, especially when the government is only concerned with short term headlines and has little interest in detail.
On fairness:
Despite it not being as unfair as it was trailed, it is still very unfair on workers and poorer workers, including those in care, in particular.
On the economy:
This is another tax on jobs and wealth creation, instead of wealth hoarding. It may not raise the funds expected.