Here come the cuts!

[mikeydt1]

money chucked at everything and now the cons are considering pay freeze for public sector apart from doctor and nurses.

 

[Sally71]

They can’t win though can they. All the businesses which have been forced to close are expecting some sort of financial help, people who have been laid off are expecting help, we are all expecting vaccines which need money to produce, where do people think it is going to come from? Either tax increases or reductions elsewhere or both, we can’t borrow forever. What is borrowed eventually has to be paid back. And people could argue until kingdom come about the best way of doing that, there is no right or wrong answer unfortunately.

 

[pm133]

money chucked at everything and now the cons are considering pay freeze for public sector apart from doctor and nurses.

Quite right although I personally wouldn't be giving pay rises to doctors or nurses either.
There are millions of people in the country facing potential financial ruin and the loss of their careers. Public sector workers are incredibly fortunate not to be having to face this to anywhere near the same extent and to give anyone pay rises in the current clinate doesn't sit well with me at all.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

What is borrowed eventually has to be paid back.

Eventually, sure. But this is (one hopes) a very unusual year or two, so borrowing for a few years (even a few decades) doesn't seem like a stupid idea to me.

In contrast, trying to reduce spending in the near future seems like a very bad way to recover. It'll quite likely lead to more private debt, more expensive than government debt, and likely to reduce spending. Much better to try to control spending a bit when the economy's doing well (if it ever does again).

 

[Northerner]

Quite right although I personally wouldn't be giving pay rises to doctors or nurses either.
There are millions of people in the country facing potential financial ruin and the loss of their careers. Public sector workers are incredibly fortunate not to be having to face this to anywhere near the same extent and to give anyone pay rises in the current clinate doesn't sit well with me at all.

Public sector workers are the ones who keep the fabric of society running, particularly during the pandemic. Now is not the time to start punishing them. If they want to start raising money, how about taxing all the unearned wealth? There's more than enough of that and plenty of very rich people have done extremely well out of the crisis. Long-term, the debt should be reduced by growth, but to stifle that growth by punishing millions of public servants would be to repeat the huge mistake made by Cameron and Osborne after the banking crash - austerity strangled growth and productivity, whilst massively increasing inequality It's a myth that a country's debt can be treated like household debt, but sadly one that many people have fallen for

 

[pm133]

Public sector workers are the ones who keep the fabric of society running, particularly during the pandemic. Now is not the time to start punishing them. If they want to start raising money, how about taxing all the unearned wealth? There's more than enough of that and plenty of very rich people have done extremely well out of the crisis. Long-term, the debt should be reduced by growth, but to stifle that growth by punishing millions of public servants would be to repeat the huge mistake made by Cameron and Osborne after the banking crash - austerity strangled growth and productivity, whilst massively increasing inequality It's a myth that a country's debt can be treated like household debt, but sadly one that many people have fallen for

They are being largely protected from mass redundancies affecting everyone else. I'm not sure why you'd use the word "punished" under those circumstances.

I'm not disputing your points on the super rich or how the debt is paid off.

 

[Northerner]

They can’t win though can they. All the businesses which have been forced to close are expecting some sort of financial help, people who have been laid off are expecting help, we are all expecting vaccines which need money to produce, where do people think it is going to come from? Either tax increases or reductions elsewhere or both, we can’t borrow forever. What is borrowed eventually has to be paid back. And people could argue until kingdom come about the best way of doing that, there is no right or wrong answer unfortunately.

This is worth a read - how we recovered after WWII - and remember that this was also when the NHS and welfare state were created, the opposite of cutting government expenditure.

UK post-war economic boom and reduction in debt - Economics Help

Graphs and data showing the post-war boom - Causes of boom and impact on national debt, living standards and employment. How UK reduced debt despite budget deficits

www.economicshelp.org

 

[Northerner]

They are being largely protected from mass redundancies affecting everyone else. I'm not sure why you'd use the word "punished" under those circumstances.

They've already had a pay freeze for a decade. They are an easy target, and they are not protected from redundancy - or have you not noticed the huge cuts to public services since 2010?

 

[pm133]

They've already had a pay freeze for a decade.

I don't see the relevance of this point. Many private sector employees have been in the same boat. It's long been known that to increase your pay, you need to move jobs. That was as true 25 years ago when I used to be an employee as it is now.

ETA. When you say pay freeze, do ypu mean an actual pay freeze or are you doing that thing where you equate an inline-with-inflation pay rise as a pay freeze?

 

[nonethewiser]

Public sector workers are the ones who keep the fabric of society running, particularly during the pandemic. Now is not the time to start punishing them. If they want to start raising money, how about taxing all the unearned wealth? There's more than enough of that and plenty of very rich people have done extremely well out of the crisis. Long-term, the debt should be reduced by growth, but to stifle that growth by punishing millions of public servants would be to repeat the huge mistake made by Cameron and Osborne after the banking crash - austerity strangled growth and productivity, whilst massively increasing inequality It's a myth that a country's debt can be treated like household debt, but sadly one that many people have fallen for

Everything that man said.

If it goes ahead it will cause divisions & resentment, sort of belittles occupations like police fire service teachers binmen as if role played in pandemic was less important.