The People’s Budget

at

12

What if you were Minister for Finance with €1 billion to play with?

Spend it all on booze, yokes and fags?

Or waste it?

Finian Murphy writes:

In 2017, the Government plan to spend an additional €1 billion on public services or reducing taxes. From health to education and pensions to transport, we all rely on taxes to pay for services – but what do you think the right mix is

…Our (Ignite Research) online tool allows tens of thousands of people tell us how they would like the Government to spend our money. [click at link below]

The People’s Budget

Sponsored Link

24 thoughts on “The People’s Budget

  1. louislefronde

    How about giving us back some of our own money?

    80% of direct tax comes from 20% of the population, namely the squeezed middle. Our taxes are being used to fund those who are in the industry of getting hand-outs. This is what politicians slyly call ‘Progressive Taxation’… it is anything but!

    The budget is a sham for buying votes with your money!

    1. phil

      Totally man, once they literally collect the 12.5% right up to the 12% , and do away with foreign tax residency for Irish citizens the squeezed middle and those other people will get a break.

    2. Fact Checker

      80% of income tax and USC comes from the 20%. But these taxes are less than a third of all government income.

      PRSI comes in at 7bn I think and is levied on pretty much all workers.

      Likewise excise VAT is pretty much paid by all, probably disproportionately more by those on lower incomes..

      The system is progressive, but not nearly as progressive as that glib soundbite suggests.

  2. Joe Small

    That’s quite useless as an indicator of what forming a national budget is like. Government’s can only guess at what the actual impact of a tax change will be (these things can and do surprise) and each departmental vote is broken down into minute detail. If I put an extra billion into the Health Vote, will it go on consultant’s pay or front line services? Who knows?!

  3. Zaccone

    I’d wager most people will be in favour of restoring services in health, education and social welfare over tax-cuts for people earning 50k+ a year. But FG already found that out at election time. Still, probably won’t stop them wasting money reducing taxes.

      1. phil

        I saves my money but that now feels like a bailout for the bank, if our public services were much better than they are now , Id happily pay even more tax…

        1. Tony

          I agree. But nothing I have seen tells me the two are related. And the raft of strikes coming doesn’t convince me to give more to the cause. If they halve the civil service, privatise a bunch of services and enforce proper regulation, then i might reconsider.

    1. Twunt

      50k is not the big wage you think it. Once you go over a very low threshold you don’t feel much benefit from the extra

    2. brownbull

      they didn’t really find that out at election time, what they found out is that they have enough core support for their policies to run government, and those who want to spend big on services will not come together to do it because they are political cowards

  4. Kolmo

    How about Apple Corp pay their legally mandated share of taxes for operating out of our little democratic republic – we’d all be living in solid gold houses and have a humanely managed health service, but seriously, solid gold houses would eleviate a lot of the problems associated with the lack of solid gold homes….

  5. Diddy

    FF really really want an extra fiver for their voting base ( pensioners) a group that weren’t touched while every other dept was ransacked …

    SF want water paid for out of general taxation. That is by everyone except their voters who don’t earn enough to pay tax.

    Social protection could be trimmed. Considerably

  6. Turgenev

    I’d put a good chunk of funding into building wide protected cycleways. This would ease the Health budget because it would have a positive knock-on effect on both child and adult health, cutting obesity and its associated diseases – diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, some cancers. It would cut road accidents because cycling is safer than driving (138 people have already died in car crashes in Ireland this year.)
    It would also ease the pressure on Ireland’s carbon footprint: if parents were willing to let their children cycle to school, an awful lot of cars wouldn’t be regularly used. Ireland is under pressure to cut diesel and petrol use – this is a good way to do it. It would cut the roads bill because cycling wears the roads less.
    I’d put another chunk of funding into a mahoosive survey of health workers – GPs, nurses, consultants, admin – and of patients to find out what is causing the disaster in our hospital services. Ask the people who know, rather than trying to put sticking plasters on it.
    I’d fund cheap State creches with good standards, proper meals and a Finnish approach to childcare.
    I’d re-fund the universities so they could give good lecturers tenure.
    I’d fund the Gardaí so the rural stations could be reopened and community policing could return.
    I’d fund the councils for a big building project done with the high standards and materials that Irish councils have always maintained (unlike the developers the government is currently trying to get to build).
    I’d fund an immediate serious study of the Portuguese drug decriminalisation project (https://news.vice.com/article/ungass-portugal-what-happened-after-decriminalization-drugs-weed-to-heroin) and plan to do the same in Ireland within two years.
    I’d fund a study of the effect of inequality versus equality in Ireland during the history of the State to see which had more positive outcomes.

    1. Cian

      yeah, but you were only give €1billion. Your list (which I don’t disagree with) would cost a lot more.
      The only inexpensive items are the last two – which is standard Government policy – “lets write a report”.

  7. sǝɯǝɯʇɐpɐq

    I carn’t even.
    I don’ty know how to
    5hit fupp boricks.

    Limerick, you’re a lady-part.
    The sooner Noonan is a No-one the better. He makes Willy O D look clever.

  8. De Kloot

    Pension provision and health system reform. That’s what. Cos if we think it’s bad now in the next 10 to 20 years it’ll be cataclysmic for all us x-gens.

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie