hmmm, limits on the proportion of GDP that can be consumed by public spending, sounds awesome to me.
33% would be the ceiling i would choose.
Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar
Yeah, well I think good national health care and education would be nice. And you want 1st rate shiny new toys for the army. Try maintaining either (or both) on 33% of whatever the UK's GDP is now.
Georgia recieved $1 Billion form the US alone after the 2008 Russian war. (eugh, fox news)
It is one thing for Georgia to say: "we don't need to perform these checks or have this capability to protect our citizens or further their interests" as someone else who they feel they can trust is doing them. Whose capability would the UK rely on to ensure its citizens were adequately serviced? Would your cherished British people be happy to relinquish such oversight of their own welfare?
Isn't that the ultimate surrender of sovereignty? How can you be in favor of that as a Euro-sceptic?
33% is an ideal, i don't expect it too happen. reducing it back to 40% would certainly pay for itself as economic growth sped up however.
and i get bored of constantly correcting the fallacious argument that increased defence spending must = more government spending. defence takes up ~5% of annual government spending whereas health, education and welfare, not to mention international aid have had money hosed at them for the past decade (collectively 47% of expenditure).
you could repair the deficiences in defence by boosting its spending by a third, i.e. to about 7% of annual spending and have zero impact on the above mentioned services, purely because such a tiny dent could be easily covered by efficiency measures.
Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar
Indeed, although the latest stats are only from 07/08:
http://www.economicshelp.org/macroec...-spending.html
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/Ab...ceSpending.htm
Interesting that you mention overseas development aid though, that has at most hit about 0.6% of GNI since 1997. Defence gets 10 times that much at what is closer to 6%.
My point was not to say that there was fat to cut from defence, rather to try to inject some realism into the desire for a 33% cap to UK government spending.
found these amusing, particularly the angela and nicolas one:
http://mylabourposter.typepad.com/blog/
Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar
I have to admit, it is only mildly better than Call me Dave "The Face" Cameron. Filling posters with just your face because you have no policies is a pretty poor to go as well.
Edit: The ITV had a news article about all the spoofs. Saying the spoofs are promoting politic discussion on the twitterweb.
Last edited by Beskar; 02-18-2010 at 20:11.
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