Budget 2009 - Yes or No?

The Muppet

Its a tough budget but is fair in that it didn't focus on any particualr group with the obvious exception of the under 20S. With some tweeking to ensure that those really in need are protected and a that there are viable options for furter education for those affected that will work out as a positive in the long term.

Irrespective of who is to blame for the situation we find ourselves in everyone has to share the burden according to their ability to pay to get our economy back on track, there is worse to come but we have no alternative than to pay up and make do best we can.

Some of the posts here are funny, some people seem to think that they should be immune for the pain and everyone else should under 20s pay.

voxpop

The Muppet wrote: »

share the burden according to their ability to pay to get our economy back on track

So you think that a family with 2 children earning around 60k a year have the greatest ability to pay!

The only group that are hit harder are public sector employees on minimum wage.

The Muppet

voxpop wrote: »

So you think that a family with 2 children earning around 60k a year have the greatest ability to pay!

The taxation and levy measures introduced and ammended yesterday were structured in such a way that those that earn more pay more which is the way it should be.

voxpop

The income levies are a crude sledge hammer designed to smash as much money as possible out of as much people as possible as quick as possible.


The levy was just one part of the budget yesterday - take a look at the budget as a whole and then come back and make your claim that it was "tough but fair"


Some figures - just to give you a quick example of how you are completely wrong:




Single person @ 50,000 net loss: -4.0%

Married couple, one income, two children @ 40,000 net loss: -5.3%

Married couple, one income, two children @ 50,000 net loss: -5.2%

The Muppet

Nothing there to change my opinion,the percentages are pretty equal. Covert your percentages to cash and you will see that everyone faces an equal burden compare to their ability to pay.

OPENROAD

pink fluffy bunny wrote: »

TBH, its nowhere near as bad as i thought it was going to be

i am happy enough with it

Wait until December

Highsider

No. Worst budget in my lifetime

aare

Last night it seemed fair...

But as the details came out this morning, that changed...

me wrote:

I think, surveying the wreckage this morning, the government have avoided a fair, overall, cut of up to 10% in the base rate of social welfare at the expense of less obvious, indirect arbitrary cuts that seem set to have the effect of pushing the most vulnerable over the edge, into debt, homelessness, destitution, and maybe worse, at the end of some month, and leaving the least vulnerable relatively untouched, rather than all claimants, across the board, having to accept a lower standard of living on a week by week basis (that would have saved more money)...and yeah...under those circumstances, a week off from penury at Christmas would have been a REALLY good thing...

I haven't looked at other areas, but I imagine it's much the same...

It would have generated more actual revenue to quit with the half-baked "demographic manipulations", largely aimed at using the recession as an excuse to force through, long term, ill conceived changes, that will only serve to make everybody uncomfortable and render a temporary problem permanent for the most vulnerable, and just apply clearly defined levies that people could see coming, and plan for.

If you deducted a levy of e20 pw from the base rate of social welfare across the board, people understand EXACTLY how much they have to cut back every week, and if it get's tough it's only for the end of the week until the next payment arrives...that empowers people to cope...and they could, and would have.

Finding an extra 80 euros to add to the rent every month is FAR harder for people on such a minimal subsistence level to manage...

Living alone, without family support, aged 18 on e100 a week is impossible...

Deducting a levy of e20 would bring in almost 3 billion PA.

Change the laws on co-habitation so that single parents, the disabled and pensioners keep a qualified adult allowance and can afford to cohabit (Last time I looked there were at least 70,000 people in this self defeating trap where loving couples go on living apart because if they did not, one of them would have to be totally dependent on the other), and you would save e100 per week + whatever rent supplement they would otherwise have required, while those thus empowered would be better of emotionally, and probably not much worse off financially...and there is potential to save hundreds of millions just by giving them what they want.

But what did they do instead?

Make punitive cuts in rent supplement that hit the most vulnerable hardest to try and force into the Rented Accommodation Scheme before the infrastructure exists to house them adequately...make draconian cuts in jobseekers allowances that will deny a few thousand genuinely disadvantaged young people the means of lawful survival in order to force them into training schemes that do not exist in a viable form at an adequate level.

Sorry, social welfare is my area of focus, and my head can only hold so many figures, but I have no doubt that the same logic has gone across the board...leading to maximum irreversible damage for minimal returns...

Make the cuts clearly, simply and transparently NOW...let people see what they have to deal with, and adjust...use the time and the money to put the infrastructure in place to support it THEN play this kind of game, only better thought out (so it might actually WORK without doing serious damage), at the end of the year as "phase II"...

I understand the gravity of the situation, I KNOW there must be desperately hard decisions...

Make no mistake, this was NEVER going to be fun.

But, almost inadvertantly, certainly unnecessarily, sacrificing some of the most vulnerable may appease the old Gods (who knows?) but it will get the economy sweet b*gger, bl**dy, nowhere.

voxpop

The Muppet wrote: »

Nothing there to change my opinion,the percentages are pretty equal. Covert your percentages to cash and you will see that everyone faces an equal burden compare to their ability to pay.

There is no hope for you then - you dont seem to have the slightest grasp of maths or an ounce of common sense. Do you understand how percentages work - 4% is less than 5%. The person loosing 4% is paying less to the government than the person loosing 5%.

A Muppet wrote:

share the burden according to their ability to pay to get our economy back on track

There is your quote. I show you from your governments figures that a single person on 50k, who has a high ability to pay, is paying less than a family with 2 kids, who have less of an ability to pay.

Your answer is to blindly ignore the figures and waffle on about fairness - well done - you have learned well from your FF masters. You are now ready to join the ranks of the Willie O'Dea squad.

Morrisseeee

This (hacked/thrown-together) budget is the worst so far (and it doesn't end there !!). :eek:
FFS I've had a normal STANDARD of Living up to now!!!!!! :eek:

It would show REAL leadership from the Government if they cut their pay in HALF (but they are too cowardly & GREEDY to do that). Looking at those inept/useless/gutless clowns 'Cowardly' Cowen & 'Limp' Linehan on TV last nite asking(telling) us that we take a dip in our standard of living, and there they are smilling smugly at us gob****es !
/did I get in enough slander there ?

FF are an 'inverse' Robin Hood, take from the poor & give to the rich !