CUTS?

The Government is trying to tell us that there is no alternative to painful cuts to public services and job losses and that ‘we are all in it together’. This is NOT true:
• The deficit was caused by bailing out the banks NOT by spending too much on public services;
• We are NOT ‘all in it together’ - the poor, the young, students and older people are being hit hardest - while the bankers still get their bonuses;
• The Conservative/Lib Dem decision to focus on massive cuts is a political choice (described as an ‘opportunity’! by some Conservatives) – and one many top economists disagree with.
We DO need to cut our deficit and start living both within our financial means and within the ecological limits of our planet. To do this we need to switch the focus from cuts onto how we can increase revenue, safeguard public services, create jobs and protect our environment:
There is an alternative!
The Alternative:
Make taxes fairer - including
1. Tax those earning over £100K at 50% raising £2.3 billion/yr
2. Get tough on tax avoidance and evasion by the wealthy – this could raise over £10 billion/year!
3. Put fuel duty and VAT on air flights – we are currently subsidising flying by £7 billion/yr!
4. Tax un-earned income at the same rate as earned income raising £5 billion/year
Make cuts sensible
5. Cut the replacement to Trident nuclear missile system – saving £90 billion in total!
Invest £18 billion/year in a Green New Deal – this would:
6. Create 1 million new jobs in energy efficiency, low carbon public transport and renewable energy;
7. Build our skills and engineering capacity for the economy of tomorrow;
8. Reduce our dependence on expensive and dwindling oil and gas;
9. Mean pensioners and families living in warm, efficient cheap to run homes;
10. Cutting 80% of our carbon emissions by 2030 – helping the planet and our pockets!

This approach would cut our deficit without a recession, without making a million unemployed and would create a better future for us and the planet

(Thanks to Stroud Green Party for this)