People's views on public spending

This a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/07/why_we_need_politicians.html" article on Mark Easton's blog /a takes a look at people's attitudes to public spending. As might be expected, it seems to me that a lot of people have contradictory views on this. They want public spending that benefits them, but they don't want to pay taxes to fund it.br /br /38% said that they were willing to pay more income tax to avoid reductions in public spending. 29% wanted spending cuts rather than tax rises. And, finally, 31% said things "should be left as they are". If you add that 31% to the 3% don't knows - then more than a third of the electorate were confused about the issue. They either want the PSBR to remain at a high level even after the recovery or they were undecided or they realised their views were contradictory and so didn't want to plump for one or the other.br /br /I also suspect, given the evidence from general elections in 1983, 1987 and 1992, that some of the 38% who claim they are willing to pay more tax may vote differently in the privacy of the polling booth. And then, having done so, they will moan about spending cuts.br /br /When people are asked what they want to cut, it seems clear that people want spending to be cut on people other than themselves. Displaying a lack of solidarity and a lack of egalitarian instincts, people plumped for overseas aid and benefits as they things they want to be cut. Leaving aside any moral issues on this topic, the fact is that the budget can't be balanced by reducing those things on their own. After all, foreign aid is only about 1-2% of the government budget. And, in terms of benefits, most of them go to pensioners. Reduction in benefits to those of working age are unlikely to save much and, arguably, could lead to more acquisitive crime and other social problems.br /br /It seems to me that people are unwilling to understand that, if you want to close the budget deficit and/or cut some taxes and/or increase spending on some priority areas, this requires tough choices. The public don't seem to have a clear view of what position to take on these tough choices and so it is up to politicians and political activists to provide some leadership on this. At the moment, the Right seems to be making a lot of running on the issue - however, the Left has the potential to get stuck in too. The Government should be making the case that - to protect the services people use - there should be increases in taxes. If you couple this with the notion of progressive taxation - that the broader shoulders should bear the heaviest burden - then the Left will be able to put together a good narrative that will be able to win some undecided people over.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/38622711-1839348948134748738?l=vinospoliticalblog.blogspot.com'//div

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