The TaxPayers’ Alliance has published a new poll today, carried out by ComRes, which gives an interesting insight into the public’s view of the financial crisis and the Government’s response to it.
Particularly striking is the public’s view of the big spending, neo-Keynesian response that Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling have been emphasising in recent days. Far from being the vote-winning approach they may have hoped, their plan to spend more and borrow huge amounts to deal with the recession has the support of only 18% of the public.
Instead, a strong 59% majority believe tax cuts are the best way to respond to the economic crisis, and 68% also want an “immediate and substantial” cut in interest rates. Far from being the pork-barrel big spenders that the Government imagined, the public are clearly tired of glitzy, big ticket projects. People would rather have money in their pockets now to help keep their heads above water than yet more large public projects, with all the waste, delays and mismanagement they inevitably entail.
The polling also reveals that underlying that support for lower taxes is a strong anger at the Government for overspending in recent years. 67% agree that “The Government spent too much of taxpayers’ money when the economy was healthier and we are now paying the price”. Brown and Darling would do well to bear that in mind before committing taxpayers to yet more spending and borrowing.
The public have a direct message for Gordon Brown personally, too: he should show some sympathy for ordinary families caught in the crisis, by following the example of the Irish President and taking a 10% pay cut.
After the Government has misspent so much taxpayers’ hard-earned money in recent years, small wonder that people would rather be allowed to spend their money themselves. To a large degree, the nation was made more vulnerable to this crisis than it should have been as a result of big spending and high public debt. The public know it and the last medicine they want is another dose of the policies that made them sick in the first place.
Mark Wallace is Campaign Director at the Taxpayers’ Alliance
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