How would you balance the budget?

[Traditionalist]

I would balance the budget within 2 years. Here is how. Instead of raising foreign aid to £12 billion as is happening we could cut it to zero, leave the EU thus ending our contribution there, bring the troops home, leave NATO, end all spending on ...quango's (now over £100 billion), end immigration saving atleast £12 billion (knock on effects nearer £20 billion). Thats just off the top of my head. Of course a vast amount of other cuts could be found in the public sector in pee cee non-jobs like gay outreach workers, climate change officers, NHS media spokespersons etc.

[alycidond9009]

Hard to pick any holes in there....

[CB100]

You would need to have a financial background to see the holes or should I say, craters.

Hard to pick any holes in there....

[Francis Overdere]

I would balance the budget within 2 years. Here is how. Instead of raising foreign aid to £12 billion as is happening we could cut it to zero, leave the EU thus ending our contribution there, bring the troops home, leave NATO, end all spending on ...quango's (now over £100 billion), end immigration saving atleast £12 billion (knock on effects nearer £20 billion). Thats just off the top of my head. Of course a vast amount of other cuts could be found in the public sector in pee cee non-jobs like gay outreach workers, climate change officers, NHS media spokespersons etc.

And that's one rep from me.

[longjohn]

I would balance the budget within 2 years. Here is how. Instead of raising foreign aid to £12 billion as is happening we could cut it to zero, leave the EU thus ending our contribution there, bring the troops home, leave NATO, end all spending on ...quango's (now over £100 billion), end immigration saving atleast £12 billion (knock on effects nearer £20 billion). Thats just off the top of my head. Of course a vast amount of other cuts could be found in the public sector in pee cee non-jobs like gay outreach workers, climate change officers, NHS media spokespersons etc.

And stop treating aids patients coming into the country and the ones already here if they it caught by homosexual acts. Should save a billion or two.

[Road_Hog]

Yep, all seems good so far. I'd add charity contributions, to many of the major charities that are now just Leftest corporations that are political lobbying institutions.

Take Oxfam as an example.

http://fakecharities.org/2011/02/charity-202918/

European Union: £42.5 million
United Nations: £13.4 million
Non-UK governments: £16 million
UK Government (mostly DFID): £11.9 million
—
Total: £83.8 million

And even if it comes from the EU or UN, we still pay for it, because they don't have any income themselves. I'm not sure how charities can become government funded institutions. Surely the public fund charities by donations, not via their taxes. I prefer to decide where my money goes.

Oxfam is very closely linked with the Socialist Worker's Party (Marxist), just put both names into Google and see how many returns that you get. Charities that are politically affiliated should not get taxpayer's money.

[Roland]

I would balance the budget within 2 years. Here is how. Instead of raising foreign aid to £12 billion as is happening we could cut it to zero, leave the EU thus ending our contribution there, bring the troops home, leave NATO, end all spending on ...quango's (now over £100 billion), end immigration saving atleast £12 billion (knock on effects nearer £20 billion). Thats just off the top of my head. Of course a vast amount of other cuts could be found in the public sector in pee cee non-jobs like gay outreach workers, climate change officers, NHS media spokespersons etc.

I could pick a few holes but all in all it would be a great place to start looking to cut.

[CB100]

It's fine to start looking but it's quite another to suggest that this is the way to balance the budget deficit of £120 billion a year.

As an example, Quangos in their widest definition spend maybe £100 billion a year and employ around 700,000 civil servants. Given the outcry at the governments existing proposals to trim 300,000 public sector jobs, increasing that target to 1 million redundancies might raise the odd eyebrow with the unions. Add to that the termination costs for public sector employees which so far have been on average at least 1 years pay.

Then of course citizens would have to live without what the quango's spend money on. So for example, the student loan company (a quango) would have to stop giving out loans to students for their uni fees etc etc. Presumably students would just all pay their £6,000 a year fees from their savings.

And a long, long list of other similar activities would also have to cease. And all achieved in just 2 years....

I could pick a few wholes but all in all it would be a great place to start looking to cut.

[ChrisV]

It's fine to start looking but it's quite another to suggest that this is the way to balance the budget deficit of £120 billion a year.

As an example, Quangos in their widest definition spend maybe £100 billion a year and employ around 700,000 civil servants. Given the outcry at the governments existing proposals to trim 300,000 public sector jobs, increasing that target to 1 million redundancies might raise the odd eyebrow with the unions. Add to that the termination costs for public sector employees which so far have been on average at least 1 years pay.

Then of course citizens would have to live without what the quango's spend money on. So for example, the student loan company (a quango) would have to stop giving out loans to students for their uni fees etc etc. Presumably students would just all pay their £6,000 a year fees from their savings.

And a long, long list of other similar activities would also have to cease. And all achieved in just 2 years....

Lets not forget the size of the UK deficit. The UK government spends £722 billion a year. 1/4 of that is borrowed. So in total you would have to cut the deficit by £180 billion just to stop going further into the red. That doesn't include paying off the reminaing debts, debts off balance sheet (PFI) or predicted pension costs in the future.

Even if you cut all the quangos you still haven't balanced the budget. The UK is well an truly in the brown stuff. The government are so worried they are now looking at selling the roads!

Also, propsing to leave Nato is a rediculous idea when you look at the current global tensions. Think of the current socio-economic situation in terms of the last hundred years. The last time things looked similar to this, we ended up with World War 2

[Road_Hog]

Also, propsing to leave Nato is a rediculous idea when you look at the current global tensions. Think of the current socio-economic situation in terms of the last hundred years. The last time things looked similar to this, we ended up with World War 2

Absolute piffle. We don't need much of a defence force, just a good one and adequately funded.

We don't need to be in Afghanistan, nor do we need to get involved with Iran and we shouldn't have been anywhere near Libya.

We should however, still have an aircraft carrier and we should be able to defend the Falklands. We should also have Nimrod aircraft. We only need to defend ourselves and our borders plus our outlying territories.