As Britain runs out of socialism, the U.S runs in

jimpeel

jimpeel

Well-Known Member
Socialism in Britain has nearly bankrupted the country. France is having riots. Germany is cutting back. Yet the United States, learning nothing from history being created right before their eyes, chooses to ignore this abject failure.

SOURCE

20 October 2010 Last updated at 12:53 ET

Spending Review: Osborne wields axe

Chancellor George Osborne has unveiled the biggest UK spending cuts for decades, with welfare, councils and police budgets all hit.

The pension age will rise sooner than expected, some incapacity benefits will be time limited and other money clawed back through changes to tax credits and housing benefit.

A new bank levy will also be brought in - with full details due on Thursday.

Mr Osborne said the four year cuts were guided by fairness, reform and growth.

But shadow chancellor Alan Johnson, for Labour, called the review a "reckless gamble with people's livelihoods" which risked "stifling the fragile recovery" - a message echoed by the SNP, despite smaller than expected cuts in Scotland.

Mr Osborne ended his hour-long Commons statement by claiming the 19% average cuts to departmental budgets were less severe than expected. This is thanks to an extra £7bn in savings from the welfare budget and a £3.5bn increase in public sector employee pension contributions.
'Frontline cuts'

The chancellor claimed it meant his savings were less than the 20% cuts Labour had planned ahead of the general election.

BBC Economics Editor Stephanie Flanders said that, at first glance, "the cuts to the welfare benefit are regressive, in the most basic sense of costing families in the lower half of the income distribution more".

Local councils are also in the firing line, with the amount of money they receive from government cut by 7.1% from April.

The Local Government Association said the move would "hit councils and the residents they serve very hard and will inevitably lead to cuts at the frontline".

Outlining the £81bn cuts package, Mr Osborne vowed to restore "sanity to our public finances and stability to our economy".

He told MPs: "Today is the day when Britain steps back from the brink, when we confront the bills from a decade of debt.

"It is a hard road, but it leads to a better future."

The main new welfare savings come from abolishing Employment and Support Allowance, which replaces incapacity benefit, for some categories of claimant after one year, raising £2bn.

Universal benefits for pensioners will be retained as budgeted for by the previous government and the temporary increase in the cold weather payment will be made permanent.

But a planned rise in the state pension age for men and women to 66 will start in 2020, six years earlier than planned.

In other measures, rail fares will be allowed to increase by 3% above RPI inflation from 2012, higher education spending will be cut by 40%, flood defences by 15% and sport England and UK Sport cut by 30%.

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From Financial Times:

SOURCE

UK unveils dramatic austerity measures

By Daniel Pimlott and Chris Giles in London and Robin Harding in Washington

Published: October 20 2010 23:30 | Last updated: October 20 2010 23:30

The UK’s Conservative-led coalition has announced the most drastic budget cuts in living memory, outstripping measures taken by other advanced economies which are also under pressure to sharply reduce public spending.

The sweeping cuts in spending and entitlements far exceed anything contemplated in the US where Barack Obama, the president, has proposed only a three-year freeze on discretionary spending and Congress is still debating whether to extend tax cuts for the wealthy.

The UK cuts of £81bn ($128bn) over four years are the equivalent of 4.5 per cent of projected 2014-15 gross domestic product. Similar cuts in the US would require a cut in public spending of about $650bn, equal to the projected cost of Medicare in 2015

The UK deficit is about 10 per cent of 2010-11 GDP. The US deficit was $1,294bn, or 8.9 per cent of GDP, in the 2010 fiscal year.

Declaring that “today is the day where Britain steps back from the brink”, George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, revealed dramatic reductions to core departments over the next four years, a £7bn fall in welfare support and 490,000 public-sector job cuts by 2014-15.

“Tackling the budget deficit is unavoidable,” Mr Osborne told parliament. “To back down now and abandon our plans would be the road to economic ruin.”

Following the crisis in Greece, UK policymakers are concerned about the willingness of investors to keep holding UK debt.

Local government will suffer more than most with reductions of nearly 30 per cent by 2015. The police force will see its budget trimmed by 16 per cent.

Two areas – the £4.6bn science budget and overseas aid, which will reach 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2013 – were protected.

Mr Osborne confirmed that the government was raising the state pension age from 65 to 66 for men from 2020. An attempt by France to raise the pension-able age from 60 to 62 has led to paralysing strikes.

On Tuesday, cuts of 8 per cent to the defence budget were laid out separately in the strategic defence review. The Ministry of Defence and the armed forces are facing cuts of 42,000 jobs by 2015.

Hundreds of London-based diplomats will be made redundant, while the BBC will take on the full cost of running the World Service, which has been subsidised by the Foreign Office.

The BBC itself has agreed to a funding cut of £360m, or one-tenth of the licence fee levied to fund its services. The cuts are the equivalent to the budget of all its national radio services combined.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.
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Don't be fooled. This is 'earth shaking' until you really look at it. the long and short is that for all their bluster, none of the parties are any different. They all claim different agendas, but their ultimate goals are the same ... just the paths they convince or force the voters to take differ.
 
Which is why we have outsiders beating the pants off the insiders right now. The people have woken & are taking a stand. It won't cure all immediately but it's a start.
 
yeah. net time i'm voting for a day care worker for president. that's certainly better than we've had over the last decade.
 
You keep saying crap like that but it has been the Ivy League professional beaureacrats who've taken us from a prosperous self-sufficient entrepeneur inventor society to a broke over-regualated service society.

Again, gimme farmer Jones & his common sense over the lawyer, anytime.
 
Britain's socialism runs out of steam?

All I wanna know is:

where is my free shit?
 
Gonz said:
You keep saying crap like that but it has been the Ivy League professional beaureacrats who've taken us from a prosperous self-sufficient entrepeneur inventor society to a broke over-regualated service society.

Again, gimme farmer Jones & his common sense over the lawyer, anytime.
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so, you don't think you're better off now than you woulda been 100-150 years ago?

you're right. the individual inventor-entrepreneur is much less significant than s/he used to be. now if you can explain how that came about - in some non-kneejerky way - i'm all ears. if not, i've got several books i could send you.

oh elmer sperry, where are you now?
 
2minkey said:
so, you don't think you're better off now than you woulda been 100-150 years ago?
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In what aspect? I've got lots more toys & an easier life (thanks mostly to fossil fuels) but my life is far more regulated & suspect now.

2minkey said:
now if you can explain how that came about - in some non-kneejerky way - i'm all ears
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One word....Progressivism. Take it from there.
 
really? can you tell me about the relationship between progressivism and the m-class corporation?

right. send me your mailing address.
 
2minkey said:
really? can you tell me about the relationship between progressivism and the m-class corporation?
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No. I can point you toward many progressive legislators & the legislation that has regulated Americans to the point of nonsense. Say, what would you like to do with your property? (ask the EPA)
 
The U.S. can do socialism right where the others failed

Yup the M4 that's an M with class
 
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