Labour reveal record debt, borrowing, and taxation (Bristol East Liberal Democrats)

Bristol East Liberal Democrats <info@bristoleastlibdems.org.uk>

Labour reveal record debt, borrowing, and taxation

April 26, 2009 12:56 PM

"Labouring for Years to Come"

Clearly the big news last week was the Budget. And what an event it was too - with poor Alistair Darling having to unveil record debt, record borrowing, and record taxation. Just today figures show that Alistair Darling's economic growth estimates are clearly overly optimistic and the economy shrank at an annualised rate of nearly 8% in the first quarter of the year. (The definition of a "depression" is a 10% fall in a year!)

The Labour Party are clearly trying to draw a red line in the sand between themselves and the Conservatives by proposing a 50% tax rate - a policy Gordon Brown spent years attacking us for!

Attached is an email from Nick Clegg on the budget, and here is a link to the party's official response:

http://www.libdems.org.uk/home/budget-2009-pick-and-mix-budget-fails-on-all-counts-237096317

The eagle-eyed of you will notice the party has tweaked its tax plans.

Instead of using cutting the basic rate of tax by 4% with the cash we would save from closing pension loopholes and other tax breaks used by the wealthy, we are now proposing to raise the income tax allowance to £10,000. I am delighted with this change as it is something that I have been arguing for a couple of years now. I believe we should have an aspiration that people on the minimum wage should not pay income tax, and this change takes us very near that!