‘A Budget for the City slaps the poor and the unemployed in the face’

Friday, 23 March 2012
Source: The Newsline

Teachers marching during the public sector workers’ strike action to defend pensions last November 30

GEORGE Osborne’s ‘rich man’s’ budget has failed to address the fundamental economic problems blighting Britain, said the Unite trade union.

Unite hit out at the Chancellor’s ‘obsession’ with pandering to the rich by cutting the 50p rate of income tax to 45p – and offering not an iota of hope for the unemployed.

Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey said: ‘This is another wasted year in what is becoming a lost decade for jobs and growth. But worse, this is a year where the poorest will be paying for the gifts lavished on the wealthy. Did Osborne learn nothing from the Thatcher years? – Trickle down economics do not work.

‘For the almost three million unemployed, there was not an iota of hope in this Budget. They are not just forgotten, they are being condemned to joblessness. This was a Budget drawn up by a Cabinet of millionaires for millionaires.

‘And we need to ask, where is the money coming from to pay for the cuts to the top rate in income tax and in corporation tax? His plan to close loopholes will only take him so far.

‘Raising the personal allowances will be some small relief for millions of hard-pressed families – but will only amount to a meagre £4.20p-a-week, when household bills are soaring and VAT remains at 20% because of this government. Contrast that with the loving care Osborne lavishes on the wealthy and it is clear where this government’s priorities lie.

‘The continued drive to press ahead with regional pay will be an economic disaster for the poorest regions of the UK, cementing the North-South divide. Spending power will be drained from these areas, and siphoned off even more rapidly, if George Osborne imposes regional pay."

‘In the run-up to the Budget, Unite had called for a budget for “growth and jobs”. New Unite research has shown that the average worker is already losing £150-a-month because of the coalition’s austerity regime.’

Unison commented: ‘This budget is not a road to recovery but a Road to Nowhere – No jobs, No growth, No idea.’ This is the damning verdict of Unison chief Dave Prentis on George Osborne’s budget.

The union accused the Chancellor of sucking demand out of the economy and reverting to the same old Tory tactics of promising tax cuts just before the next election.

Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: ‘The Chancellor’s budget has given a helping hand-out to his rich friends in the City and delivered a slap in the face to the unemployed and low paid families.

‘Osborne should be delivering policies to get the 2.67m unemployed people back into work and economically active. Instead, the Government’s cuts agenda is making the situation worse by adding to those numbers month by month.

‘Since the coalition came to power, we have seen 625 public sector workers joining the dole queues every single day, bringing misery to hundreds of thousands of families.

‘Far from encouraging economic growth, the Chancellors’ policies are sucking demand out of the economy. Public sector workers are being hit with a pay freeze again this year and now the Government are proposing local pay which means £1.7bn would be lost from the economy.

‘Taking money out of the pockets of hard-working people will starve local shops, cafes and businesses out of much-needed revenue sending the economy further downwards.

‘The Chancellor’s budget gives with one hand and takes with the other. The increase in the personal allowance will help those who are working – but offers no relief for the unemployed. And we know that the Government has already announced cuts to tax credits which hits hundreds of thousands of working families with children.

‘Osborne’s budget flies the Tories true blue colours, but is a missed opportunity to restore desperately needed jobs and growth to the economy.’

Responding to the Budget, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: ‘We needed a Budget that looked to the future and made jobs – particularly for young people – the national priority. Instead we have got a Budget for the rich by the rich.

‘One minute the Chancellor said he found tax avoidance morally repugnant, the next he rewarded it by cutting income tax for the richest one per cent – with precious little relief for hard-pressed families on ordinary incomes.

‘Treasury figures show that those on low and middle incomes will do worse than those higher up the income scale.

‘This looks like a Budget made to keep the Coalition together rather than one made for the good of the country.’

Paul Kenny, GMB general secretary said: ‘In this budget the different treatment of people at either end of the income scale is stark. Ordinary families are losing their tax credits and child allowances and suffering pay freezes while people on top salaries of £150,000 to £1m a year are getting cash hand outs from the Government.

‘So much for the perception of shared sacrifice. The claim that it is necessary to boost the take-home pay of those on top salaries to get the economy moving while cutting the pay of the lowest paid to achieve the same result is total and arrant nonsense.

‘The big picture is that the gamble this Tory Liberal Government took on the economy has not come off. The US economy which stuck with fiscal and monetary policy to promote recovery is now growing again and unemployment is falling while the UK Government decision two years ago to cut spending has led us in the opposite direction. This has added £ billions unnecessarily to the deficit.

‘Only those with faith-based economic theories would think that the loss of 381,000 public sector jobs, which has already happened and which added to the dole queues in the middle of the worst recession in 80 years, was the road to economic recovery. Osborne has as much economic nous as a stick of rhubarb.’

The CWU commented: ‘The Budget offers little for ordinary working people in the UK while cutting tax for the UK’s wealthiest people and continuing to cut public services.

‘CWU welcomes confirmation that the government will take on the Royal Mail pension deficit as this will safeguard the pensions of hundreds of thousands of postal workers.

‘CWU says today’s Budget offers little new investment for superfast broadband and calls it a wasted opportunity to invest in universal access to broadband.’

Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, said: ‘This budget will continue to divide society. The period since the election has highlighted the point that public spending cuts hit growth. Reducing public spending even further is an unbelievably backward move.

‘Attacks on public sector pay and jobs will simply reduce spending power and further depress the economy at a time when investing in the public sector is essential to secure growth.

‘Threats to national pay structures are yet another unjustified attack on public sector workers and will hit spending power hard in the poorest areas of the country.

‘While the Chancellor rewards the most well-off in society with his cuts to taxes for the wealthiest, youth unemployment and child poverty rates are soaring.

‘The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that if the Coalition Government’s current policies continue unchanged, child poverty will rise by around 100,000 every year.

‘Failing to address these issues will have major human, social and economic costs. We are clearly not all in this together.

‘High quality education is essential to economic growth, yet this Government has failed on its promise to protect investment in schools and colleges.

‘While the Government pursues its unnecessary and expensive academies and Free Schools agenda, the majority of schools and colleges are left struggling to cope with the effects of cuts to schools’, colleges’ and local authorities’ budgets. No Government can afford to underfund society’s future; cuts in education undermine not only the economy, but social cohesion as well.’

The RMT stated: ‘This is a budget of the rich for the rich. The tax changes mean that a banker on half a million pounds gets a kick back from George Osborne of £17,500, money robbed from our public services and the neediest in our divided society.

‘The tinkering at the lower end of the tax scale will be swallowed up by increased utility bills and travel costs while the rich will just engage another army of accountants and lawyers to dodge the so-called clampdown on tax avoidance by inventing another barrage of scams.

‘This budget unleashes savage cuts to jobs, wages, welfare and services in the public sector while pandering to the private greed of those same people who dragged us into this economic crisis. It will spark an upsurge in protest and resistance across the country as the vast majority realise that they have been mugged by this Government of the wealthy elite.’

The University and College Union (UCU) said that additional cuts to corporation tax were not the way to get the UK back on track. The union said corporation tax should rise and the money used to fund educational programmes.

UCU said that the UK already has one of the lowest levels of corporation tax in the G20 and its future is not as a haven for companies looking to move capital, but with no loyalty to the UK. The union added that depriving the Treasury of billions of pounds through tax cuts for big business made a mockery of claims that ‘we are all in it together’.

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: ‘Starving education of funds, axing grants like the EMA and hiking up the cost of access to college and university, while authorising billions in tax giveaways to big business, is not the way to get us back on track.

‘If the chancellor really is on the side of aspiration, he should be making access to education easier and creating a highly-skilled workforce that can compete in the high-knowledge global economy.

‘The UK’s future is not as a haven for companies who want to move capital and have no loyalty. Lowering corporation tax will deprive the Treasury of billions of pounds and prove once again that talk of us all being in this together is utter nonsense.’

Responding to the Budget Statement, Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union in the UK, said: ‘No respite on the public sector pay freeze, which is causing misery for millions of dedicated and committed public sector workers.

‘No relief on the cuts to public services.

‘No end to the relentless march of this Government’s privatisation agenda.

‘No practical measures to deliver much needed support for the record numbers of unemployed young people.

‘No prospect of having a decent retirement as a result of the Chancellor’s decision to hand over the review of the state pension age to an unelected Quango of men in suits.

‘No let-up in the constant lies and denigration of our world-class state school system.

‘No prospect of narrowing the gap between rich and poor.

‘This Budget offers no hope from a Government that is out of touch with the lives of ordinary people.’

Millions of trade union members must tell their union leaders that talking is not enough. Hot air will not solve this crisis.

The unions must defend woring people, the elderly and the youth by calling a general strike to bring down the coalition and bring in a workers government that will put an end to capitalism by bringing in socialism.

This is the only way forward.

(The Newsline is the daily newspaper of the Workers Revolutionary Party in the UK)

Tories aid millionaires by intensifying the assault on millions

Friday, 23 March 2012

Source: socialist action

 
George Osborne Photo by: conservativeparty

By Stephen MacAvoy

George Osborne’s latest budget launched another assault on living standards of millions of people whilst defending narrow interests and further entrenched the policies that are creating economic stagnation. Only a clear break with these policies will prevent a detrimental impact on the living standards of the majority and years of slow growth.

Politically, the purpose of the measures was clear. The measures, described by the Financial Times as “eye-catching tax cuts to Britain’s wealthy” - such as the reducing the 50% rate of income tax for the less than one percent earning over £150,000 and the cuts to corporation tax - are an attempt to shore up the core base of the Tories. As Ed Miliband pointed out, 14,000 people earning more than £1m annually will receive a tax cut of more than £40,000 each year. The increase of the income tax threshold was an attempt to reach out to a wider set of voters, but the average additional £170 income per year will not compensate for the reductions to their income already underway.

Economically, the aim of the budget is equally clear. Tory stagnation has clearly slowed down the economy but the focus of the Tory strategy is not restoring growth but maximising profits. Given the backdrop of a declining economy, this can only be achieved by driving down working class living standards and increasing the share going to profits and to the owner of capital.

To achieve this, the government announced another package of assaults on the working class: tax increases on millions of pensioners, regional pay in the public sector, £10bn of further welfare cuts planned on top of all those already proposed and real terms cuts in the minimum wage. The cuts in corporation tax, totalling £4bn by 2017, are aimed at ensuring the capitalist class receives a greater share of the economy.

The Tories’ priority is restoring capitalist profit which they hope will also then induce companies to invest and thus create growth and jobs. The budget assumes profits will grow faster than wages in each year of austerity.

The damage that austerity is doing to living standards of the majority, to unemployment (now over 50% foryoung black males) and to growth is clear.

The latest GDP figures show that the economy is suffering from protracted stagnation – set to grow by just 0.8 per cent this year as it did in 2011. This stagnation is the key feature of the economic landscape, regardless of whether there is a ‘double dip’ recession. The economy remains 3.8 per cent below its 2008 peak and on current OBR estimates it is not set to return to its pre recession levels until 2014, a full six years after recession kicked in, making it the longest slump in over a century. As the FT’s Economics Editor put it, “Britain is on a stopping train, not a high-speed line”.

The chart below shows that it is Tory economic policy that has caused the flat-lining of the economy, with growth of only 0.3% growth since the third quarter of 2010 – that is once the policies outlined in George Osborne’s emergency austerity budget in June 2010 began to take hold. Of course, slower growth this leads to declining tax revenues and increased government borrowing.

Prior to this, and as the direct result of Labour’s stimulus under Gordon Brown’s government, which was itself wholly inadequate, both investment and government consumption increased, leading to a resumption of economic growth This led to the economy recovering 3% of the 7.1% slump lost during the 2008/9 recession, with around two-thirds of this expansion accounted for by rising household consumption and investment

Chart 1: Tories cause stagnation

Osborne’s latest budget will do nothing to tackle the key causes of economic stagnation. As the chart below shows, from the last year prior to the crash of 2007 to the end of 2011, the economy has fallen by around £40bn (in fixed 2008 prices). As explained in a previous article, investment originally drove this collapse. However government policies - including VAT hikes and welfare cuts – and falling real wages and unemployment have since driven down household consumption. Now both investment and consumption contribute equally to the near £40bn decline in the economy, with the impact partially offset by government expenditure and by net exports (two-thirds of which is due to falling imports).

Chart 2: ONS figures

Austerity policies that attack investment and consumption clearly only worsen not only growth, but also the governments stated objective of debt which is now much higher than the Tories first estimated when they took office and has led to them announcing plans to extend very deep cuts into the first two years of the next parliament after 2015.

Instead, and given the collapse of investment drove the recession (see chart 3) and remains well below its pre-recession peak, government policies should be orientated to increasing investment as well as consumption to create jobs and spur economic growth. Instead the overwhelming majority of austerity measures are still to come, with spending cuts so far amounting to £23bn of the total £126bn that are planned.

As Jonathon Portes, Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, explained “This Budget will do nothing to address the most obvious problems that economic policy could do something about: the UK’s creaking infrastructure and the long-term social and economic damage if we allow current unemployment levels to persist”

The government has revised down its estimate for business investment in 2012, from last November’s Autumn Statement estimate of 7.7% to just 0.7%. Whilst even the Office of Budget Responsibility’s report fails to back up Osborne’s’ claim that the flagship policy of nearly £4bn of corporation tax cuts will increase business investment. Their figures show this will lead to an increase in business investment of just 1 per cent by 2016, leaving national income just 0.1 per cent higher.

Public investment meanwhile continues to fall, with it set to fall by over half, from 2.6% of GDP to 1.1%, between 2010-17 whereas Labour had expanded this in the early years of recession, contributing to greater levels of growth and leading to higher business and consumer spending.

Consumption will remain weak as wage rises are set to remain below inflation –that is real term wage cuts - until 2014. Incomes were previously protected not only by low interest rates but the temporary cut in VAT and increased government spending. They are now being undermined by the very opposite polices, which are acting as a drag on the economy

Against this Tory austerity, the left needs to offer serious economic alternatives, not purely rhetoric, that can lead the political debate. The living standards of millions of people require this.

Chart 3: Investment driven recession

Chart 3 compares current levels of different components of GDP to their peak before the recession in percentage terms. Clearly, tackling the decline in investment must be at the core of economic alternatives, as this in turn will create the jobs, growth that would increase living standards and in turn deal with the debt levels.

With the private sector not investing the state should step in and carry out a government investment programme, such as a house building programme, that would stimulate the economy. As Martin Wolf explains in the FT this could be afforded as the government is “confronting extremely low borrowing costs”.

There are however other measures possible too. British companies have estimated cash reserves of £700bn – nearly twenty times the amount by which the economy remains below its previous GDP peak. Given the capitalist are on an investment strike with a negative impact on millions of people’s lives, the government could tax these to provide funds for investment or simply take these resources over and invest them productively to kick-start the economy. Likewise the nationalised banks could be used to fund investment programmes.

These measures are all rejected by the capitalist class and their political representatives solely because they would require the state – i.e. non private actors– to intervene into the economy and thus weaken the power of private capitalists.

Nonetheless, these are the type of measures required to stimulate the economy. The alternative is years of slower than historic growth and high unemployment and attacks on the population’s living standards.