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Ed Balls will pledge to 'balance the books' by 2020 
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25885606

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Fri Jan 24, 2014 10:44 pm
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Labour has pledged to balance the UK's books and deliver a current budget surplus in the next Parliament if it wins the 2015 election.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said Labour would pass a law to ensure it adheres to "tough" and binding fiscal rules.

These would include eliminating the deficit and reducing debt as a share of GDP between 2015 and 2020.

Chancellor George Osborne has already said a Tory government would aspire to an absolute budget surplus by 2020.

We all know that aspirations never become reality. They get dropped at the first hint of trouble.

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Fri Jan 24, 2014 10:49 pm
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I'm not sure the Labour mentality would ever allow them to balance the books for a whole term in office.
It also makes their critisisms of Tory cuts looka bit hollow as they have to cut too.

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Sat Jan 25, 2014 7:34 am
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As a rule of thumb, left wing governments are usually better at balancing the books than right wing ones.

Right wing governments usually overestimate both the positive impact of tax cuts (theorising that lower taxes guarantees revenue generating growth), and their capacity to cut government spending (which is generally less wasteful than is commonly supposed).


Sat Jan 25, 2014 7:53 am
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The sad thing is I'm sure the last Labour government could easily have ballanced the books if they'd wanted to. But they chose to borrow and borrow.

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Sat Jan 25, 2014 7:57 am
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Legend

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Labour will restore 50p top rate of income tax, says Ed Balls

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... x-ed-balls

Presumably it gets avoided like the plague anyway...

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Sat Jan 25, 2014 1:05 pm
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l3v1ck wrote:
The sad thing is I'm sure the last Labour government could easily have ballanced the books if they'd wanted to. But they chose to borrow and borrow.

Repeating the same lie doesn't make it true, you know. Evidence


Sat Jan 25, 2014 1:50 pm
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Much of our deficit is a result of the automatic stabiliser as a result of the financial crisis. Also having a surplus is no protection if you allow the banks to run rampant. Look at Ireland, it had a surplus until the crisis and is now practically insolvent as a result of bailing out the UK, French and German banks. So running a surplus will only mean less income for companies and households unless you have a roaring trade surplus which we do not have.

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Sat Jan 25, 2014 3:12 pm
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jonbwfc wrote:
l3v1ck wrote:
The sad thing is I'm sure the last Labour government could easily have ballanced the books if they'd wanted to. But they chose to borrow and borrow.

Repeating the same lie doesn't make it true, you know. Evidence

What? A couple of years where they suck to Tory spending plans and got a boost from 3G licenses. You call that ballancing the books?

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Sat Jan 25, 2014 5:01 pm
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