A few financial thoughts

I hesitate to write this post, knowing that I have absolutely no qualifications to do so. I've never studied economics or even politics, and my maths is legendarily bad. So financial matters are hardly a subject I can speak about with authority! On the other hand, while reading and listening to analysis of yesterday's budget, I found myself getting annoyed with some of the comments people were posting. So here's a few thoughts. If you disagree, remember that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and that "my opinion doesn't matter matter matter..."

The people who say that government is too 'big' and should be 'slimmed down' seem to be forgetting something, or perhaps they don't realise quite what that means. It means job losses. Not just the well-off Whitehall bureaucrats they see as villains, (I somehow think that they'll be the last to go) but the average people who work for the council, doing everyday vital jobs like administering housing benefit or social work. And while unemployment is increasing rapidly, do we really want to add to this by laying off more people? Enough problems and delays are caused by poor investment and undermanning as it is; do we really want this to increase? Perhaps there is scope for cutting wasted money, but perhaps keeping people in work should be more of a priority at present.

On the topic of unemployment, I was pleased to see that someone has noticed the problem young people have finding jobs. I imagine their plan to give everyone under 25 who's been unemployed for more than a year a job or training is aimed more at school leavers than graduates, but the problem is much the same: when there's so much competition for so few jobs, employers are less willing to take a risk so go for the more experienced candidates. I have to confess to being dubious at how much difference this new plan will make, but at least to have acknowledged the problem is a step forward.

Other parts of the budget don't really affect me. There's no way I'll be buying a house any time soon, I'm not eligible for any benefits, I don't smoke, I certainly don't earn enough to pay the extra income tax! In fact, the increased personal allowance could make a fair bit of difference to what I earn. Tax increases on alcohol won't affect me much, and although that on fuel probably will at some point in the next few months, I have some sympathy with the environmental arguments behind it.

So I suspect the changes outlined yesterday won't make a vast difference to my life, one way or the other. I find that the more people complain, the more sympathetic I become to what they're complaining about. I often wonder, when people are complaining about having to pay more in tax (or in this case for the government to borrow more) what they would rather happened? Would they prefer to have privatised (for example) health or schools, which would probably mean those that could afford it payed more than they currently do, while those who couldn't afford it suffered?

The one tax issue I do get annoyed about is one that's not been mentioned much lately: Council Tax. Because there are two of us in our household who are employed (even though I'm only part time and we're both on low incomes), the household gets no reduction from the full amount due on a fairly large (well with 4 adults living there it would be) house, even though one of the other two occupants is unemployed and the other is a student. It's...daft. Surely there's a better way? But that might mean some people paying more so that others can pay less...