A Budget for the Rich
This week’s budget was yet another Tory giveaway for the rich. After 13 years, this was sadly familiar. Billions spent giving the 1% a huge tax cut while the rest of us endured more stealth tax increases and public spending cuts.
There was nothing in this budget to tackle child poverty, homelessness, the housing crisis or stagnant wages.
There was nothing to help reduce bills, rent, help gig economy workers, or raise the sick or unemployed out of poverty.
Perhaps most astounding was there was nothing for our NHS, nothing to tackle the local authority funding shortfall and no investment in any of our other public services.
Instead, we got tinkering around the edges, a childcare package that won’t come into force for years and more tax cuts for big business and the wealthy few. Yet more evidence, if we needed it, our economy is rigged for the rich. What economic growth there is benefits a few at the top while working people have seen their wages stagnate and the cost of living soar. Tax cuts for the rich have been paid for by cutting public services relentlessly. Poverty has skyrocketed.
To fix that we need a bold budget that invests in ordinary people.
A budget that delivered for the people of Edmonton would increase benefit rates in line with the cost of living, reinvest in public services including Enfield Council, introduce a £15 minimum wage and begin the process of bringing public services back into public hands so that we can tackle the cost of living in the long term and not just freeze prices at historically high rates.
It is not enough to tinker around the edges of an economy that only works for the 1%. We need to change it.
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