Budget blues (From The Northern Echo)

Budget blues

1:16pm Monday 23rd February 2009 in Search

THE budget deficit, now named the Public Sector Net Cash Requirement, is showing worrying signs of sinking ever deeper into the red, at a rate the Government failed to predict when it went on its VAT-cutting spending spree before Christmas.

Many economists warned then that the cut would make no difference and that the Chancellor's predictions were too optimistic, but were ignored.

As a result, this year's Budget, which the Chancellor has pushed back to an unusually late date in April, will require the Government to make some harsh decisions.

With the economy in recession tax receipts are falling dramatically, financial sector and company profits are collapsing, the property market has stalled, capital gains are non-existent, savings rates have slumped, VAT has been reduced, the price for North Sea oil has fallen.

At the same time, we have discovered that the national credit card was already maxedout, with Gordon Brown having borrowed, and squandered, billions when times were good.

This year's budget was always going to be tough for the millions of people already struggling.

Sadly, it will now be tougher still because of the money that was wasted by a government too arrogant to listen.

James Wharton, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate, Stockton South.