Mark Wallace

Budget 2009: The Budget nasties come to light

Today’s Budget was never going to be a good one for taxpayers. With the recession exacerbated by a Government wedded to high spending; shooting for a record debt level; and unwilling or unable to admit that there is such a thing as public sector waste, the question for many was simply “How bad is it going to be?” Unfortunately, the closer one looks, the worse the answer seems.

The TPA’s research team have been looking into different aspects of the Budget this afternoon to both put the Budget’s own figures into context and to investigate some of the small print of the Government’s plans. Predictably, more than a few Budget Nasties have reared their heads already.

First, let’s look at the national debt. Even at first glance, the numbers involved are huge, but in a historical context they are staggering. David Cameron’s initial assessment of the sums involved as being more than all Government borrowing in the previous 300 years combined is of course accurate, but critics will undoubtedly argue that he has ignored the effects of inflation. Even taking inflation into account, though, the amount that will be borrowed from 2008-09 to 2013-14 is more than the debt this country ran up to win World War One, World War Two and the Napoleonic Wars combined. Where Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler could not exhaust our national financial resources, there is a real chance that this Government might do so.

Next up for scrutiny is the much-vaunted green jobs scheme. On page 135 of the Budget, the Chancellor lays out his intention to create 400,000 more jobs in green industries.

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