Topic: BUDGET

[rosebud]

 What do we all think of the budget. Only printable comments please ;D ;D.

[tomatoada]

I am trying to find out how it effects me as a pensioner.   So far vat on some of my shopping.

[lorna]

Haven't had time to hear the details yet, too busy visiting an old friend who I haven't seen for 2 years then home and had to get the hose pipe out. I guess with the state of the country we expected a pretty harsh one.

[OllieC]

Haha, we could do a poll "Are you better or worse off"... but it would only need one button!
Based on what I've seen so far, I think it's pretty fair although also pretty harsh. At least there are a couple of concessions for the very worst off in society. Nice nod to pensions with index linking, step in the right direction for CGT, without upsetting the "entrepreneurs" in society... I think it's a budget most of us can all live with - a belt-tightening, not noose tightening budget!

What is annoying me, is Labour moaning about how the government are attempting to fix the mess they were left with! (and yes, I was one of many who voted New Labour in all those years ago. What a betrayal!).

[Larkshall]

What is annoying me, is Labour moaning about how the government are attempting to fix the mess they were left with! (and yes, I was one of many who voted New Labour in all those years ago. What a betrayal!).

I know how you feel. I have voted Lib/Dem for years, well now we shall see whether they're worth it.

[Paulines7]

It's not the budget that frightens me but other announcements such as getting rid of NHS targets.  It frightens me that we may return to 1996 when I had to wait 18 months to see a consultant about my extremely painful knee and another 7 months for a scan.  In 2007 it was 2 weeks waiting to see the consultant for the other knee. 

If the last Government hadn't propped the banks up there would be money in the public purse but several of us would have seen our savings and current accounts frozen as banks went into liquidation.   What would you have preferred?

[betula]

I quite agree Pauline.

[lewic]

All seems pretty reasonable to me. Though 20% VAT is disproportionately hitting the lower paid. There should be a 'more money than sense' rate of VAT on some products. Like 75%.

They should have gone further and axed child benefit altogether, and just raised the tax limit so anyone earning less than £20k doesnt pay a penny. Raise the minimum wage and introduce a maximum wage. Anyone who doesnt like it.. here's your one way ticket!

[amphibian]

The real worry and the bit getting little coverage is the plan to cut public spending by 25%. Ouch!

[Chrispy]

It's not the budget that frightens me but other announcements such as getting rid of NHS targets.

There is one I am glad to see scraped, the 2 days to see your GP.

Why? Well if I phone the surgery on Monday, and ask for an appointment on Friday, that say I will have to phone on Wednesday. If you ask why, thay just say 'thats the way it is', but the truth is if they gave me the appointment, it don't count in the targets.
Anyway, so I have to phone Wednesday, between 8am and 8:30am, any later and all the appointments have gone.

Tony Blair was on a live talk show where he was asked about this. He said he was shocked by it, would look into it straight away and fix it.... Years later, and nothing has changed.

With the last goverment it was all about targets, and if their targets were met on paper, thay did not seem to care if it made any real difference.

[Paulines7]

But it made a lot of difference to hospital waiting lists, Chrispy.  The waiting list for orthopaedic surgery in Salisbury was well over 2 years when Labour took over from the Conservatives in 1997.  It took them a few years to get it down by pouring more money into the NHS and paying for people to have their operations done at a private hospital.  They got rid of the long wait though.  People should never have to wait this long when they are in extreme pain.

I never want to go through that again.  I was on the highest dose of opiates that was allowable and my GP would not give me anything stronger, such as morphine.  At this time too I was a full time carer for my Mother who had Alzheimer's.  The pain was so bad that I was contemplating taking a knife to my knee or throwing myself down the stairs so that I would have to be admitted to hospital as an emergency patient and perhaps then they would have to sort out my knee.

Eventually I was sent to the Nuffield in Bournemouth to have my knee replacement operation to cut down the waiting times.  The consultant who operated said the knee was one of the worst he had ever seen.

For me and many other elderly people, the most important thing in life is health, yet I can see things going back already to how they were.   

[carrot-cruncher]

On the face of it I am better off by approx £100 a year.

I do feel child benefit should either have been scrapped or means tested.  The rise in basic allowance before taxation is my main benefit but it's wiped out by national insurance changes.

Regarding my parents, both retired, the rise in basic allowance sounds great but because it means they get more income it's immediately taken off their benefits so they are no better off.

What the government giveth, the government taketh!!!

CC

[BarriedaleNick]

I think amphibian hit the nail on the head.
25 % cut in public spending - this has never been done in this country.  Even under Thatcher we didn't get anything like this.
If you rely on public services (and we all do to some extent) then life is going to get a lot harder..

The devil will be in the details but imagine 25% less being spent on the police, on our border agency etc.  If you remember the pain of the early 80s then get ready for a much harsher rerun..

[Columbus]

I`m annoyed by the contant pokes a public sector workers.
I have recently taken a £235 a month pay cut (yes you read that right) and a 10 hr a week increase in my hours under a reorganisation scheme.
There is no prospect of a salary increase next year. That was the situation before the budget.
Last week i arrived at work early every day, worked through coffee breaks and lunch breaks, brought work home and worked from half ten til midnight every night.
I was repeated hit in the face, and kicked in the face and the back of the head,
gouged and scratched on the hands and arms.
I have a niggling pain  in my left hand after a crushing injury, I`ve recently had a other long term, more serious injuries.
My colleague is leaving, staff will not be retained at these salary levels, in a few years there will be no-one to take care of the people I work with. Poking by people who couldn`t and wouldn`t do what I do doesn`t really help. My wife is a local governemnt worker she has her own stories. Col, now I gotta go to work, love it  ;D

[GodfreyRob]

Its always been a Tory principle that anyone who works in the 'public' sector is a burden and therefore expendable. This was true under Thatcher and its true today.

They are going to deliberately make several hundred thousand public sector workers redundant in a so-called bid to save money. Then when these people are drawing unemployment benefits they will call them scroungers living off the state!

[timnsal]

But it made a lot of difference to hospital waiting lists,
 ...
For me and many other elderly people, the most important thing in life is health, yet I can see things going back already to how they were.   

Now that is scary. Orthopaedic waiting times here are excessive now.
My 18 year old son has been waiting since December for an op to fix his shoulder - had to give up work, leave college and is in a lot of pain. They haven't even finished investigating the problem to decide how to fix it yet, but the 25+ week wait doesn't affect the targets because he isn't on the waiting list for surgery yet. It took a formal complaint to get them to give an appointment for the next test, almost 4 months after they last saw him.
Waiting time is still ridiculous, they lie to manipulate the figures, the poor kid still hasn't been treated, and it's going to get worse.

Sally

[manicscousers]

My daughter is a nurse in Whiston hospital, they've just moved into a fantastic new building, the top 5 wards have now been taken over by private wards and all the staff laid off, she now has a 2 yr wage freeze, no overtime, no bank nurses and they're messing with pensions, she has 2 children, her husband works too so no more tax credits..what's next..we're all doomed, Mr Mannering  :-\ ;D

[froglets]

Columbus, this isn't a pop at front line staff, but I had to "manage" ( yeah right) quite a number of middle management and technical back office staff who had been TUPE's into our company at various tiems from various public sector divisions.  Athough there were some who recognised the change and got on with it, I was appalled at the attitude of most of them.  People worked to the letter of their contracts, turned up, did only what they were required to do by their precise job description and then went home, on time every day.  I don't know of anyone in the private sector on £30k+ who does that.  I then had to put up with moaning about not getting pay rises they were "entitled to" - in the private sector we do pay for performance, not for turning up, an dwhen we lost one of the contracts, one guy refused to travel half an hour to work at another office unless we  - wait for it - bought him a car, because he hadn't needed one before as he could walk to work. Don't get me started on the pension or redundancy packages!!!!
Ok, maybe they were the worst of the bunch & for my sins I got them in my team as I was an experienced manager who did activley manage my teams, but it really coloured my view of public sector middle level staff.  If those people have to work harder or take a pay cut, then I think it brings them into line with what the rest of us have to live with as standard & if I'm paying my taxes for them to work for me ( as a public servant) I want them to experience what I've had to deal with for the last 15 years.

Rant over, lying down in a darkened room till my blood pressure reduces..

[lillian]

My daughter is a nurse in Whiston hospital, they've just moved into a fantastic new building, the top 5 wards have now been taken over by private wards and all the staff laid off, she now has a 2 yr wage freeze, no overtime, no bank nurses and they're messing with pensions, she has 2 children, her husband works too so no more tax credits..what's next..we're all doomed, Mr Mannering  :-\ ;D

No overtime, no bank nurses. Wonder what they do when the're short staff :o

[powerspade]

What gets me is that those greedy morons from the banks have got away with it, They still getting high pay and still are playing with out money and taking risks. If I did what they did I would be in prison by now. They should have all their assets taken off them and used that to help us get out of the mess that they created. If this happened in Russia they would have been shot .