Gordon`s first attempt to get that smile right was not an unqualified success....Clive Crook, in the FT observes just far left Obama is pushing the US . With grim foreboding I notice how his dilemma (ambitions but no money ), mirrors New Labour’s in 97 . Blair's problem was a pledge to stick to Tory spending plans . For Obama its his undertaking to raise income taxes “by not one cent” for almost all Americans.
Squeezing the rich cannot plug the hole . To précis Mr. Crook ,the US income tax system is already ultra progressive (OECD study). It collects 45 per cent of its revenues from the highest-income decile. Compare that with Britain at 39 per cent, Canada at 36 per cent, France at 28 per cent, Sweden at 27 per cent and an OECD average of 32 per cent ….The fact that the US has no broadly based sales tax makes Europe’s overall tax codes less progressive still .Crook thinks Obama needs a Sales tax but that aint what he promised .
New Labour squared the circle of political debt and spending strictures by lying .Brown ‘shook up the world’ with his titanic announcement on new Health money ..
“Under the previous government the increase for the past three years was £7 billion I am announcing an increase in health service funding of £21 billion …..“( GB 14.8.98)
“..“The Gord Giveth ” howled the Mirror . .. Labour wept with joy , how did he do it ? Nowadays we would guess ,but back then it fooled everyone...
Actually spending was to rise by annual stages from £37 billion in 1988/9 to £46 billion in 2001/2 which is £9 billion per annum to you and I .He invented £21billion by adding in the extra three billion for 99/2000 an extra £6 billion for £2001/2 and the £9 billion for the year after that to get £18 billion . The extra £3 billion was Scotland Wales and N Ireland money bunged in out of context.
Even these figures were bogus . The IFS calculated that spending on health increased by 3.6% a year over five years . Under Major it had been 2.5%. Its more ,true , about £2.3 billion more over the lifetime of the Parliament ,or about 10% of the figure Gordon Brown announced .
The same techniques , using multi year figures in a one year context , were used at the G20 .One wonders what Obama learnt by his proximity to V oldermort .It was Brown after all that schooled Blair in the dark arts not visa versa… .God help America and if Obama goes Browny ; god help us all.
12 comments:
Brown's NHS manipulation has never got the press that it deserved. Every time he made a big announcement or a big commitment in the Budget, it always fell apart under closer scrutiny.
This year's Budget will be particularly interesting, now that the voters want public spending to be cut.
This year's Budget will be particularly interesting, now that the voters want public spending to be cut.
yes indeed LFAT no--one is looking out for cuts but Brown can count he knows they have to
The Americans are cottoning onto this big time, newms. The overwhelmingly positive response to Dan Hannan's lovely speech from the other side of the pond is one testimony to that.
The other is the blog on the Glen Beck Show's website, which has me gripped at present. Glen Beck is leading the criticism of Obama and the charge that America's honeymoon with Pres O is totally over. The Yanks are responding to Obama's taxation plans and love in with the EU with calls for impeachment, Boston Tea Parties and hockey mom's demos right across America.
Some little woman in England called English Rose is winding up those blogging Americans with her supermarket receipts, petrol bills and by forecasting their future stealth taxes too:
"it’s [US under Obama] all so hauntingly reminsicent of England after Blair and Brown took power around 11 years ago.
It was all so cleverly achieved…drip, drip, drip…away dripped our democracy…drip…drip…away went our freedom and our vital (unwritten) Constitutional controls on government.
“It’s a new dawn, is it not?”, said Blair, smiling like an ethereal cherub as he first crossed the threshold of 10 Downing Street. Even some of us Blair sceptics initially found ourselves carried along with the tide of that supposed new dawn, half believing that Blair and Brown might just form a decent government and keep their promises. We hadn’t grasped then that those promises of fairness and power to the people were just spin - EU code words for a huge power grab from the people by a rich powerful elite.
But it was all done by drip…drip…drip…you see. Until the drips turned into a continuous streams of regulations, stealth taxes, fines and controls on us people and our way of life.
We in England are now the most watched and surveillanced people in the western world. With just 1% of the world’s population, we have 20% of the world’s surveillance."
Right, says Lance of Milwaukee, I am fund raising for the following:
"CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
V.
UNITED STATES GOVERNEMENT"
Don't you just love those Yanks? Now why didn't we do some of that?
And the overwhelmingly positive response to Dan Hannan's lovely speech, from the other side of the pond, is one testimony to that too.
"Every new day i wake up I hope we still call this country America!!"
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/blog/stu/?p=630#comments
Hmmm Flo do you remeber you said you could not quite make up your mind .Personally I do not like the Democrats but Bill Clinton did some good things and I still wantto belive that Obama is more than just a Blair
Hmmm Flo do you remeber you said you could not quite make up your mind .Personally I do not like the Democrats but Bill Clinton did some good things and I still wantto belive that Obama is more than just a Blair
YOutube:
American Tea Party Anthem by Lloyd Marcus
Mr. President!
Your stimulus is sure to bust.
It's just a socialistic scheme,
The only thing it will do
Is kill the American Dream.
You wanna take from achievers
Somehow you think that's fair.
And redistribute to those folks
Who won't get out of their easy chair.
We're havin' a tea party
across this land.
If you love this country,
Come on and join our band.
We're standin' up for freedom
and liberty,
'Cause patriots have shown us freedom ain't free.
So when they call you a racist cause you disagree,
It's just another of their dirty tricks to silence you and me.
I believe in the Constitution and all it stands for.
Anyone who tramples it should be booted out the door.
We're havin' a tea party
across this land.
If you love this country,
Come on and join our band.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2H8xHFXC8U&NR=1
Pres O sucking up to the EU, Brown and the One World Order crap pushed me to the other side, newms.
That is depresing Flo...I think I know you are right
Friday 13th is America's
"We surround them" project day
otherwise known as
"We, the people"
Their aim, as I understand it, is to make Obama listen so he stops damaging the US Constitution.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Yes,,,...(sniffle )
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