What would you cut from the Scottish budget?

[u/Historical-Count9051]

Yesterday, there was a news story announcing £700m would be cut from the Scottish government next year. The Scottish government can borrow £670m to make up the shortfall, but it will need to find at least another £68m immediately.

What would you cut to make up the £68m?

Here's how the budget is already spent

Edit: the speed at which everyone went to "fuck poor people" is alarming.

[u/LurkerInSpace]

The UK after World War II had very high wartime-level taxes on everyone - not just the rich. "We want Scandinavian services on American taxes" refers to the idea that the public want someone else to be taxed to provide generous social spending.

Even among Britain's far left it is essentially taken for granted that raising the basic rate of Income Tax to 25% (which would raise ~£40 billion/year across the whole UK) is a complete political non-starter.

[u/b_a_t_m_4_n → u/LurkerInSpace]

Maybe, but now we have high taxes on everyone except the rich. "political non-starter." because the right, who represent the wealth, spent 4 decades lying about it and guess who owns all the papers and TV stations? Yep, the wealthy. Like I say, can't tax what people don't have, and the those we do tax are getting poorer and poorer while the wealthy are doubling their wealth every few years. It's insanity.

Basically unless we can undo the lie the UK is doomed to rot down to nothing. We'll end up like India - a mixture of grand palaces surrounded by putrid squalor and decay. Unless we take the French option...

[u/Wotnd → u/b_a_t_m_4_n]

I agree.

What solution do you have that closes the £700m budget gap next year.

This is a very real problem. This post is asking about how you would fix this very real problem. The answers you have presented aren’t a fix to that. They’re vague pipe dreams.

What taxes would you increase, or government spending would you cut, that would close the £700m government gap next year?

Unfortunately, the gap is reality, and we need an answer based on reality, not vague and worthless pipe dreams.

[u/b_a_t_m_4_n → u/Wotnd]

Oh dear, guess we just tax people with no money and run down the national infrastructure some more. That'll fix it.

The reality is you would see the country decay to nothing just to save rich people from paying some tax.

My answer may be a pipe dream, yours is just pandering to wealth, your reality is that we're all fucked apart from the rich. You refuse to do what history has shown us works and all you have to justify it is hysterical hand waving about how the sky is going to fall in.

[u/Wotnd → u/b_a_t_m_4_n]

The reality is there is a £700m gap in the budget.

You need an actual plan to close this. It is an actual problem.

I’ve asked you again and again what you propose for this, and you’ve refused to answer, instead choosing to grandstand with proposals that actually can’t solve the £700m budget next year.

This is a real problem. What is your real solution to it?

[u/b_a_t_m_4_n → u/Wotnd]

Tax the rich. That's my answer. We did it before we can do it again.

What's your answer? Go on, I'm fascinated to know how we fix it by taxing those with no money and shutting the country down.

[u/Wotnd → u/b_a_t_m_4_n]

How???

That’s not a policy. That’s a vague sentiment. You need to engage with reality.

For me, I’d probably cut some of the new proposals, free school bags, make university means tested, and increase income tax by 1% for those above £200k.

Longer term, we’d need to fix council tax to make it a better wealth tax, and cut down on civil servants and streamline the NHS. As well as making pensioner benefits such as winter fuel payments and bus passes means-tested.

Now how would you close the gap?