How can we save £60 billion?

[Anna B]

OK, so the politicians won't tell us.

So how would you suggest we save the necessary 60 billion quid?

 

My first ideas would be to cancel the Olympic games and return them to Athens where the facilities are already built. (I think they should be simplified and held here permanently anyway, and it might help out the Greek economy.)

 

Cut the number of MP's by roughly 50%

 

Cut Quangos and stop trying to micro-manage everything.

 

Cut civil service pay drastically for everyone earning more than £100,000.

 

Tax the banks. And the bankers.

 

Withhold money from the European Union until it has been properly audited and signed off. Publish accounts so we can see where every last euro is going.

 

Break up the NHS into smaller more managable chunks so that a closer eye can be kept on spending, and practical savings can be made. Get rid of at least 50% of the managers.

 

Withdraw troops from war zones like Afganistan.

 

Only a small start. What others would you add?

[Guest sibon]

OK, so the politicians won't tell us.

So how would you suggest we save the necessary 60 billion quid?

 

 

I have a big whisky bottle that I put all my 20ps into. You would be surprised how much it holds when it is full. I think we should encourage Gordon, or David, or Nick to do the same.

 

Either that, or they could print more money. That will trigger massive inflation. After a few years of that £60bn wont look so big.

 

We will all be screwed, but hey...

[hitman2010]

scrap trident.

[Edge]

For starters stop giving 40 million pounds a day to Europe.

[mike84]

OK, so the politicians won't tell us.

So how would you suggest we save the necessary 60 billion quid?

 

My first ideas would be to cancel the Olympic games and return them to Athens where the facilities are already built. (I think they should be simplified and held here permanently anyway, and it might help out the Greek economy.)

 

Cut the number of MP's by roughly 50%.

Cut Quangos and stop trying to micro-manage everything.

 

Cut civil service pay drastically for everyone earning more than £100,000.

 

Tax the banks. And the bankers.

 

Withhold money from the European Union until it has been properly audited

and signed off. Publish accounts so we can see where every last euro is going.

 

Break up the NHS into smaller more managable chunks so that a closer eye can be kept on spending, and practical savings can be made. Get rid of at least 50% of the managers.

 

Withdraw troops from war zones like Afganistan.

 

Only a small start. What others would you add?

 

your post contradicts it's self quite a lot, you say stop trying to micromanage everything but then say break the nhs into smaller more manageable pieces? How can you do both. The NHS is already split down into Primary Care Trusts. Cutting managers is an option but then the remaining ones will have to take on more work, responsibilities and their budget increases as they'd have to pick up that as well. I don't think it would lead to a closer eye being put on spending and budget management. It would probably reduce the amount of time spent on budget monitoring and management.

 

Cancelling the olympics is a stupid idea now because most of the work is done, acres of land compulsary purchased, materials ordered, building commenced. The penalty charges alone for getting out of the contracts would cost more than completing the work. The hundreds of millions it will bring into the economy will be useful as well.

 

How can you cut 50% of MP's? I'd be interested to know your theory on this and how much you think it will save.

 

Civil service pay needs to be reviewed but just cutting pay isn't what's required . A full analysis needs to be done. For example, a chief executive of a council might be paid £200k, 50% of this will be repaid in tax, plus there's national insurances as well. Also, being the overall accountable person for (in sheffields case) an overall budget of £1.5billion per year and 14'000 employees deserves a decent salary. In the private sector, I'm sure someone in a similar position would be on a comparable salary.

 

Spending cuts in the public sector are always going to be difficult because it's always going to be essential services you have to take money from. Police, nhs, fire, education, social services etc. Every citizen wants better services than we already get, the majority of us don't like paying taxes though. Bit of a catch 22!

 

I really haven't a clue how the government can save all that money, that's why I vote, for them to come up with the ideas and try to sort it out. I do know that everything needs looking at as a bigger picture than just picking things out like has been done in this thread though.

 

If all else fails I suppose the queen could send off the crown jewels to cash4gold to see what she'd get to chuck in the pot!

[Titanic99]

A good thread started.

 

I'd like to see the implementation of something similar to the Liberals Mansion Tax only starting much earlier and that would be a one-off tax to those who have seen their property value rocket under Labour.

 

I'd also like to see taxes rise for anyone earning over £100,00.

 

I'd also like to see Motorways being charged with the money raised going to the treasury.

[SimpyTimpy]

We were talking about this at work and found out some interesting figures (although not 100% sure of the accuracy, we did quite a bit of research though).

 

People who should be paying tax but aren't (small businesses, self employed). The taxes that would be raised if everyone paid what they apparently equates to 8% of GDP

 

Breaking that down, GDP was £1.749 Trillion in 2008 (source Wikipedia) so roughly £140 billion in tax receipts that should have been received, were not recieved.

 

Seems to me like this is an area that we should be focusing on - we'll never 100% of tax, but even getting 50% of this would clear the defecit.

 

Welfare Benefits Source were projected to be £165 billion in 2010, although not sure what the final figure was, this is another area.

 

For this area, I would like to see:

 

- Reduction in Job Seekers allowance and benefits in general and see a good proportion replaced with food stamps (similar to USA) where perhaps 30-40% of benefits could only be spent on food. More general regulation and control over where benefits are spent would be ideal

- Those who remain on Job Seekers allowance for a period lasting 12 months or more would be required to work 1 day a week doing community work, with the amount of days spent doing community work increasing by 1 day for each year they have been on JSA. Example, Joe Bloggs has been on JSA for 3 years, therefore must work 3 days a week on community work in order to earn JSA.

- Refusal to work would cancel and void all benefits other than food stamps.

 

Reduction in Capital Gains Tax allowance

 

- This is an idea that's been brought up by all parties, and a reduction to around £1,000 - £2,500 would be good.

- This would increase tax receipts on bonuses which are deferred in Shares to employees.

 

Tax Incentives for Banks

 

This ones slightly more controversial. The taxes banks currently pay would be dependant on the state in which they are being managed. For example, a bank which maintains a healthy Tier 1 capital ratio, manages risk to an acceptable level and helps fund businesses in the country would pay the current amount of tax which they are currently subject to.

 

Banks which lose 'points' on the above issues would steadily increase the amount of tax in which they would be liable to.

 

Hopefully this would give incentives for banks to be managed in a more stable and efficient manner by giving a financial return for good banking. In addition, casino style investment banks would be able to continue, but would pay a higher amount of tax due to the increased risk to the consumer.

 

The devil's in the detail with this one - as an idea though I quite like it.

[Vague_Boy]

so roughly £140 billion in tax receipts that should have been received, were not recieved.

 

Is that a cumulative figure? This article in The Telegraph has the total amount of UK fraud at £30 billion annually, of which £15 billion is tax fraud (link).

 

50% of that £30 billion would help, but only in a very minor way.

 

Given that none of the main parties really has the will to do anything about the debt, here are two realistic alternatives. (a) The government defaults on its debts (unlikely) or (b) it prints like crazy.

 

The latter option is the easiest, which is why politicians tend to favour it. If you have savings in Sterling, I'd suggest transferring at least some of them to gold and silver, which politicians can't debase.

[unuspromulti]

Depends how you look at the question, do we need to raise £60bn by cutting costs or increasing earnings and therefore tax paid?

 

Most people here and most commentators say we need to cut x amounts off everywhere and it's necessary as the treasury is overspending to support the economy but at the same time people and businesses need to become more productive. We work more hours in this country than our european neighbours but are less productive, part of it are the employment laws but having worked with quite a few eastern european and chinese people it seems to me as though we're quite lazy in comparison.

[Longcol]

For starters stop giving 40 million pounds a day to Europe.

 

I don't think that computes somehow. Net contribution to Europe 2010/11 £6.5 billion.

 

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2009-07-14d.150.4