Lobbying the council - 11th Feb 2017 10:04am
We are invited, on another thread, to lobby the council's budget meeting.
I see little point in this. The cuts are not their fault. Ultimately, they have only the money that the government allocates to them, and it it is not enough. If you want to lobby anyone, lobby the government. They mistakenly embarked on their 'Austerity' program for no good reason and it has not worked. They are now officially abandoning it in preference for simply not spending money!
I would remind people that they embarked on it to cut government debt, which stood at about 65% of GDP after Gordon Brown had supported the banks. In the 1940s - after the war - our debt was about 250% of GDP, but the Atlee government ignored this and embarked on widespread nationalisation and setting up the welfare state - both hugely expensive programmes. None of the post-war debt was ever paid back. In fact, the amount of money owed increased enormously, but the GDP of the country grew so that as a percentage, the debt fell to about 30% just before the banking crash.
The austerity programme managed to cut the GDP so much that our debt has now gone up to about 90% of GDP. It will get worse with brexit.
However, it is worth considering who are the creditors for this debt. Got any national savings? Or Premium Bonds? Or a pension fund? Then YOU are amongst the creditors. As a country, we are largely in debt to ourselves! Cutting spending in hard times is an appropriate response if you are an individual, or a family or even a company or a local council. For a country that prints its own money, it is probably the worst thing you can do!
This may seem counterintuitive nonsense, but it was fully explained by John Maynard Keynes and has been tested and shown to work time after time. The government - who seem not to have heard of it - has proved once again that austerity doesn't work. It never has and never will. It can't!
So if you want to lobby anyone, lobby the government not local councils who generally trying to do their best with an inadequate budget.
I see little point in this. The cuts are not their fault. Ultimately, they have only the money that the government allocates to them, and it it is not enough. If you want to lobby anyone, lobby the government. They mistakenly embarked on their 'Austerity' program for no good reason and it has not worked. They are now officially abandoning it in preference for simply not spending money!
I would remind people that they embarked on it to cut government debt, which stood at about 65% of GDP after Gordon Brown had supported the banks. In the 1940s - after the war - our debt was about 250% of GDP, but the Atlee government ignored this and embarked on widespread nationalisation and setting up the welfare state - both hugely expensive programmes. None of the post-war debt was ever paid back. In fact, the amount of money owed increased enormously, but the GDP of the country grew so that as a percentage, the debt fell to about 30% just before the banking crash.
The austerity programme managed to cut the GDP so much that our debt has now gone up to about 90% of GDP. It will get worse with brexit.
However, it is worth considering who are the creditors for this debt. Got any national savings? Or Premium Bonds? Or a pension fund? Then YOU are amongst the creditors. As a country, we are largely in debt to ourselves! Cutting spending in hard times is an appropriate response if you are an individual, or a family or even a company or a local council. For a country that prints its own money, it is probably the worst thing you can do!
This may seem counterintuitive nonsense, but it was fully explained by John Maynard Keynes and has been tested and shown to work time after time. The government - who seem not to have heard of it - has proved once again that austerity doesn't work. It never has and never will. It can't!
So if you want to lobby anyone, lobby the government not local councils who generally trying to do their best with an inadequate budget.