Redistributionist budget? Yeah right.

I'm not going to comment on the borrowing aspect of all this, because it's fairly obvious that yes, it's alot, and yes, it's a big risk (though not so much as the press is going on about, it's basically the same as France works with).

But I have found the talk of 'redistributionist taxation' somewhat confusing as a conclusion from the following figures:

£5 billion to come from cuts to state services
£5bn to come from National Insurance rise of 0.5%
£2.8bn from a higher tax bracket.

It's the last of these which has prompted much whining by the media about how Thatcher's pro-rich taxes are buried for good. As Dave Osler points out in his blog, this view is rubbish:

Dave O

Let’s get some sense of perspective. Even a few years back, the Lib Dems were sufficiently bold to call for a 50p in the pound take on the rather lower threshold of £100,000 a year. How quickly the political right forgets that even during the hey-day of High Thatcherism, the top rate of income tax during the period was 63%; Even given that he is a former Trot, Alistair Darling is but a hopeless wuss by comparison to 'Red Geoff' Howe.

But beyond that, look at the other two figures. National Insurance is what's known as a regressive tax, it primarily hurts the working class as there's more of them and it's a higher proportion of their (working) income being taken away. It barely touches the rich. Most of that £5bn comes from the combined capital of the workers. The other £5bn, per year, is specifically about squeezing public sector workers - expecting more work for less pay from millions of working people across the country. What we are in fact saying here is that the rich are being asked to pay less than a quarter of the cost of Labour's big spending plans, with rest of it coming from the proles.

How is this 'redistributionist', precisely?

Libcom forum link