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 f you add together your income tax, NIC, VAT, petrol duty, excise duty, road tax, tv licence, etc. The total is equal to HALF of your pay.
What on earth do the Government do with our money?
Some of it is spent on the infrastructure which supports our society such as the NHS at £40bn per annum, education, defence, transport and social security (£90bn per annum). However, the State have expanded their remit to such an extent that enormous tranches of our money is spent inappropriately, take for example the Millennium Dome (£780m); subsidises to the Millennium Experience company (£538m), Construction costs for the Scottish Parliament (£200m), Advertising (£92m); Spin (£1m); more tiers of Government; more enforcement staff and so on. Not to mention Fraud -- over £1.7 billion is lost to Welfare Fraud (Public Accounts Committee 13/1/2000) and £100m is lost to Housing Benefit Fraud (Audit Commission 1/12/99) . Even within key Government departments, profligacy is rife and it is time our politicians were brought to account.
Is the Public Service's lack of performance really due to under funding?
Every representative of the Public Service blames a lack of performance on under funding. The issues of mismanagement, inefficiency and extravagance are never addressed . The taxman is already in receipt of half of your income, how much more do they want and how much more are you prepared to pay?
Do we really need this much Government?
For the constituency of Aberdeen North alone, we have a local councillor, a Westminster MP; a Scottish Member of Parliament and a Euro MP (total cost £345,000 pa). Not to mention all the Quangos, Statutory bodies and Government Agencies. What is their contribution to the economy ? How much is it all costing us?
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