Anyone reading the Express this morning is more than likely to choke on their cornflakes at the sight of the £900 extra we’ll have to pay in tax to cover Brown’s impending borrowing and spending spree.
Trying to buy his way out of trouble, Brown is heading for another budget binge designed to provide new childcare places in nursery schools and other ‘investment programmes’ which will only serve to increase the size of government. Look at it like this: under Labour the amount government spends has doubled. They spend £80,000 a second of your money. Are you satisfied that the doubling of government expenditure has gone to better public services? I didn’t think so.
In an astonishing sign of detachment from reality Brown admitted “it is right to borrow and raise public expenditure”. Rising unemployment means fewer NI, income tax and other tax receipts gained through employment. A gradually increasing unemployment benefit roster means fewer is coming in yet more is leaving Treasury coffers in handouts. So, with less coming in, Gordon wants to spend more. Clearly it's the economics of the strait-jacket.
But Brown is in the bunker and resorting to what Labour does best (or worst) – spending your money. Yet this strategy is entirely New Labour. Slyly borrowing to fund spending increases, they lack the political guts to hike up taxes now to pay for current spending which will come crashing down as a tax will bill we’ll all have to pay when the debt needs to be paid off. On the one hand the Government berate banks and city traders for ‘irresponsible’ lending and dealing. On the other, with a barefaced cheek, they concede to borrowing more to ratchet up spending. Gordon talks – you pay!