Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Soak the rich and we all drown

 What exactly does Nick Clegg think he would achieve if he were ever to be let loose on the nation's finances and impose a wealth tax?

Soaking the rich may seem like a simple solution to the country's financial woes and you could even argue that, if we are indeed, "all in it together", there is some merit in bringing this home to the extremely well-off.
They have, after all, remained relatively immune from the consequences of the banking crash and the Labour Government's spending splurge.
But the rich really are different. If they don't want to pay taxes, they don't have to. They can escape any noose the plodding Mr Clegg might tie for them.
A tax on the rich would simply encourage the wealthy to flee the country. They would take their millions elsewhere.
As a result, the economy would suffer even more than it is suffering already.
I must say I thought the politics of envy went out of fashion a generation ago but clearly I was wrong, it is alive and well and gnawing at the innards of the Liberal Democratic Party.
The solution to this country's woeful Government spending crisis does not lie with squeezing more money out of the well-off - even assuming, which I sincerely doubt, that they would hang around long enough to allow the selves to be squeezed.
The solution requires lower taxes, not higher ones, coupled with a real attack on public spending, not the half-hearted and pointless pretence put up by Chancellor George Osborne and his Lib-Dem sidekick Danny Alexander.

No comments: