Missing the point

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Having linked to that little survey (where it reports over 30% of respondents will be attending) I foolishly read some of the comments, and granted the people commenting probably only read the article which claimed that the Rally against debt was a “pro-cuts” demonstration. But still other people tried to put that fallacy straight, but it would seem that for many of our friends over at the Gruniad the idea of being against the debt, but not necessarily in favour of cuts seems to be too subtle a point for them. The hopes for violence and the suggestion that everyone who’ll be at the rally are far too rich and self centred to understand the impact of the cuts are also not really indicators of well thought out positions. But then as one of them did observe this debate (like so many others) isn’t exactly awash with intellectual rigour. Thankfully for that and a moral consideration we can as ever turn to Archbishop Cranmer who I think captures the purpose of the rally (not a protest) quite succinctly:

“The Rally against Debt is, in reality, a moral exhortation to people (and so the Government) to live within their means. It is essentially a response to the ‘March Against Cuts’, held earlier this year, which brought together many thousands of people whose logical objective was to sustain the nation’s debt and increase the budget deficit.”

Considering the no-cuts campaign the only way it can be justified is if one feels that there is within our Government not one scintilla of wastage, that every penny is carefully and thoughtfully spent, mindful that it was produced by the sweat and toil of someone’s labour. If anyone does actually think that I’ve got a the deeds for a wonderful cloud castle full of unicorns and magic money trees that they might be interested in. Equally given the lack of debate and how the cuts seems to be being handled I don’t trust that the cuts are being given much thought either, I don’t believe that each cut is being carefully considered, for necessity and impact or each service checked for wastage. The lack of thought and imagination within the corridors of power is troubling. Could not radical reform and simplification of benefits perhaps with a a citizens wage not save money and make it easier for people to work (though obviously it’ll be harsh on the armies of people currently employed to administer our Byzantine benefits system). Or maybe we could look at how we tackle poverty and where we’re giving international aid (do China, Pakistan and India really still need money from us say?).

So unless you think that a country having a large and increasing debt is a good thing, why not come along and see if we can’t get a real discussion started as to what can actually be done about it?

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Another survey to play with

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Obviously on line surveys are very important indicators of public mood, and one should never try to rig them, unless of course it would be funny. So with that in mind let me point you to at this little poll by the Guardian:
Will you attend the pro-cuts march?
(Hat tip Rally against debt)

As the saying goes, vote early vote often :)

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Rally against debt – tomorrow

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Rally against debt May 14 2011 There have now been several protests against the “cuts”, which is all well and good, but there’s not been a lot of visibility from those that think that perhaps our current level of national debt is a bad thing and that perhaps it might be a good idea to do something about it. Until now! (well tomorrow actually).

Tomorrow at 11:00 am in London at the Old Palace Yard, Westminster there is a rally against debt. Note this is not (despite what the Guardian thinks) a pro-cuts rally, or a rally for higher taxes but a rally against the national debt. As others have observed the numbers invovled are brain hurtingly large, in an ideal world we’d not have got this far into hock but thanks to our glorious leaders we have. To get ourselves out of this hole we’ve got to cut spending, it won’t be pleasant but it has to be done. What’s needed now is a lot less “mights” and a lot more truth. This isn’t going to be a huge rally, there’s no one organising coaches to bus people in, so everyone that turns up will make a difference.

The continuing shovelling of money to bail out the banks and the EU is starting to put businesses out of business reducing the tax take. Putting taxes up can only help to an extent as there comes a point where as mentioned above it does start driving businesses out of work. If nothing else as more of your money goes direct to the government in taxes you’ve less to spend and so the revenue of the companies you would have spent with goes down. This reducing the tax take from those companies, and over time they need to employ less people and so things spiral down. So as there’s a limit to how far taxes can be raised, the other option is to reduce spending, which if one assumes ( despite all the evidence to the contrary ) that all government funded organizations are hyper efficient with no waste means that there have to be real spending cuts. Not the fake spending cuts happening so far, we’re still spending more and borrowing more than last year, but actual real cuts so that spending and borrowing actually decreases in absolute terms. So the question left is what to cut, how to cut it and how long and how hard the belt needs to be tightened for.

Who knows we might even discover that the government is actually doing a bunch of stuff it doesn’t need to, and that maybe we could simplify the tax system the benefits system and a load of other stuff to make it easier to understand and cheaper to run. Why for instance tax people who earn so little they qualify for other benefits, why not just raise the tax threshold and stop giving them their tax back – thus removing two chunks of bureaucracy in one easy step?

So if you happen to think that spending more than the NHS costs on interest payments may not be the best plan ever devised, then come along and lets see if we can persuade our glorious leaders of all parties that we really do need to do something about the debt so that we don’t pass a massive bill down to future generations (gosh they’ll thank us for that when we’re old and entirely dependent on them to look after us “What’s that granddad you need some pain killers? Well perhaps if you’d not run up that huge fecking debt all those years ago we could afford them, now shut up and eat your gruel”).

So hopefully see you there, and in whatever pub I fall into afterwards. It’s thirsty work protesting after all.

Oh and just as Anna Raccoon has offered as blogger seems to be being unavailable in places if you’ve got something you want published till it’s back feel free to send it here. Why you’d want to rather than take up Anna’s offer I’ve no idea but…

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