You are chancellor of the exchequer , what do you cut

[Norman Verona]

Before I made any cuts I would attempt to cut the cost of goverment.

1) Abolish RFL (or is it VED) and add say, 4p per litre to fuel. Saving: about 3000 civil servants, everyone pays, no "dodgers", Police released from catching offenders.

2) Everyone gets, say £180 per week and all "benifits" are abolished. Those in work have the first £180 deducted. Savings: another 12,000 civil servants.

3) add the price of the TV license to council tax, very houshold pay and no additional cost in collection. Another 1500 civil servants gone.

4) ministers pay is graduated to how FEW civil servants in their ministries.

No idea what the savings will be but after those savings I may think about cutting expenditure.

So, what ideas do you have.

[User0083]

I'd be far more drastic!

Get 50% of MP's and do an exchange with German MP's. so the one's here can be taught and see actual change and the one's there can see how the difference has worked after many years on implication.

[Simeon]

My idea is. Make every truck with Irish plates at the channel ports pay a 'just passing through' tax and also every foreign truck at the ports to Ireland. Could add extra funds to border security.

[Norman Verona]

Simeon, by increasing tax on fuel and abolishing the tax disc you would be doing just that.

[Simeon]

Simeon, by increasing tax on fuel and abolishing the tax disc you would be doing just that.

Not necessarily. They don't all fill up their trucks here. Some would fill up in Ireland and some on the continent. So there, put that in your pipe and smoke it

[Rusty Nuts]

Health & Safety you don't want to put any fuel in your pipe and smoke it

[jeff oakley]

To get the economy back on track we need a balance betweens cuts and investment. The first cuts I would make would be to overseas aid, the latest to promote green issues in other lands, then any country who has nuclear weapons, no aid, any that shows signs of buildong armies up no aid. We gave £17 million to South Africa where the president spent £15 million on his presidentila palace, go figure that one out.

We need to build projects like the seven barrage to produce electric that is clean and renewable. it would regenerate a huge area of South Wales and the west country, but some frog is in the way or some such.

I would limit legal aid to just £25 per hour and set maximun amounts payable for any case to avoid the legal proffession ramping up bills. The like of ABU Ansa (SP) have cost millions in legal aid.

Benefits would not be given freely, they would be work aid programs. we should have the cleanest streets out there. The alternative would be to attend training centres to attain skills that would gain employment.

No benefits for anyone that has not contributed here for at leats 2 years.

No beneifts sent out of the country, many polish workers can claim income support for children who are not in this country for example.

Cutting costs armed forces, unless there is a vacancy no promotion, we have more admirals than ships. The army is in a similar situation where they cannot afford body armour yet spend millions on ceramonial dinners etc. Only buy what we need and when worn out, we used to do this but now everything is bought with a life use, and they are sold on regardless. Remember the top gear episode where clarkson was knocking down a building with a mine clearing device. That was for sale at the surplus unit when it worked well for the single purpose it was built for why replace?

There are so many but the big problem is the people charged with making the cuts are incompetants. Watch yes minister and see just how things happen, Departments shift blame and staff until the origanal idea has gone and their position is safe.

[jeff oakley]

Not necessarily. They don't all fill up their trucks here. Some would fill up in Ireland and some on the continent. So there, put that in your pipe and smoke it

I thoughtall forgien trucks had to buy a disc now to drive in the UK. If that is as I understand it trucks fro NI would be okay but SI would not.

[Dodgey]

"2) Everyone gets, say £180 per week and all "benifits" are abolished. Those in work have the first £180 deducted. Savings: another 12,000 civil servants." - This I love ! :-)

For me the 1st thing would be to get all long term benefit claimants to do community work, any work of some sort. They need to learn to give back to society in some form. We could do away with all parkies, council grass cutters, litter collectors etc this way.

There was a woman on the news this morning. She looked like she was in her early 40's. She works in a factory. She complained the 1% cap on benefit rises will hit her child benefit/income support. She has 4 kids....... don't have 4 kids unless you can afford it! That really infuriates me. I'm paying for her, and millions like her, to breed like cats.

[Norman Verona]

Jeff, surely Polish immigrants may CLAIM for children in Poland but that's illegal.

Likewise, ceremonial dinners put on by a regiment will be paid for out of mess funds, not the taxpayer.

Most Foreign aid is linked to export orders. The USA demand $1.05 worth of orders for every $1 donated. It used to be normal for foreign aid to be administered by trustworthy organisations to avoid money being misappropriated.

Agree about no benefits unless a period of contributions are paid. That will lead on to only allowing people in who have a job waiting. But if someone wants to come to our country and stand on their own how can you stop it given they have a right to so do under EU regs.

Agree about working for the job seekers allowance. However, how do they look for work if they have to do work for the community and if they fail to turn up will you stop their money. In that case the children will suffer.

Armed forces. Why do we need any at all. Seems to me it's only to back up the USA's half thought through wars, which in most cases, seem to be caused by their previous foreign policy. Who is going to attack us in the foreseeable future.

As far as replacing used forces equipment I think you make an assumption that it's all replaced with new. I'm not sure this is the case. I had a long conversation with the owner of the Misson Site which is full of surplus equipment. Most of it is redundant and being sold, not replaced.

Agree about large, government paid, capitol projects. It's how all previous recessions have been handled since FDR's "New Deal"

So, what's the answer. Vote a Labour government in to spend our way out of the mess we've allowed ourselves to get in. Then put the Tories in to look after the money.

My parents were died in the wool Labourites. However they always voted Tories in the good times as "they were better at looking after the money". Labour was for the bad times.

[XTR2Turbo]

First I think government needs a clear distinction between spending and investment. The ratio should be locked eg. spending must always be atleast 30% investment not the approx 5% it is now.

For me investment is roads, schools, R&D, etc spending is welfare, defence etc

More fundamentally though we have to get a mind change in this country that the government ecomics of this country and most of developed Europe are not sustainable going forwards. We are not in a recession but a structural deficit that needs radical change.

In the past 20 years we have relied on debt, oil revenue, economic and population growth to pay for the excesses of the previous generation.

No more .. we need to work on a model that could operate with close to zero growth and debt repayment for the next 20 years.

But there aren't enough votes in the policies needed to make it happen over a two term parliament for a government to be brave enough to act.

On current forecasts the government won't even be getting income to cover costs until 2018 and at that point there will be around 1.5 trillion of debt to repay.

[Kevin Jones]

No benefits for anyone that has not contributed here for at leats 2 years.

I would go different on that, benefits should have a lifetime cap, the amount being paid at any point out being proportional to how close you are to the cap, money you don't claim should be given as additional pension.

[Nick Algar - Competition Secretary]

I don't know the way that you fix it. But one thing that makes me realise we have got something very wrong in this country has just happened at my local garage ;-

The guy that owns it employs 2 mechanics, doesn't pay them big money, but it's OK. One of his mechanics who is only about 30, has just had a baby with his partner. This guy then figured out that he would be on more money now he has a kid if he didn't work. So he is now nearly at the end of 6 months off on the sick with "depression" after which he leaves his employment and can either go on long term sick or get benefit's. Now because it's a small community we all know that he is doing work on the side fixing cars and making some cash that way. But everyone on here who pays taxes is now paying for a 30 year old guy to live and do cash jobs. Who had a decent job before. The garage owner has had to pay this guy for 6 months, although he gets some of it back. But it's left him out of pocket and meant he has had to work all hours to keep the business going. How do I know this is what happened ? the mechanic that went off told the other one what he was doing before he did it. He even looked it all up on the work computer !!

Until a government fixes that situation we are on a sinking ship :bangshead:

[SootySport]

Normans No2, For £180 a week each, the wife and I would give up work and so would a lot of others, not very well thought through I'm afraid.

[TAFKARM]

Not all people on benefits are "scroungers".