Quote of the day 4th October 2014
"At home, though we’ve brought it down, there remains a large budget deficit and our national debt is dangerously high.
The budget deficit is approaching half what it was when we came to office, but it is still far too high.
So we will see through our plan to eliminate it.
And then to ensure our country is never in this position again, we must run surpluses in the good years.
And when I say surpluses, I mean the government raising more than it spends.
Labour claim they will balance the books. But independent experts tell you the truth: their plans would mean they would borrow £28 billion more each year.
Running an overall surplus is the only sure way of getting our dangerously high national debt down.
Let the message go out from this conference:
We will fix the roof when the sun is shining."
(Extracts from Chancellor George Osborne's speech this week)
The budget deficit is approaching half what it was when we came to office, but it is still far too high.
So we will see through our plan to eliminate it.
And then to ensure our country is never in this position again, we must run surpluses in the good years.
And when I say surpluses, I mean the government raising more than it spends.
Labour claim they will balance the books. But independent experts tell you the truth: their plans would mean they would borrow £28 billion more each year.
Running an overall surplus is the only sure way of getting our dangerously high national debt down.
Let the message go out from this conference:
We will fix the roof when the sun is shining."
(Extracts from Chancellor George Osborne's speech this week)
Comments
You say "the government raising more than it spends"
well here is the clever bit, why not try
"The government spending less than it raises"
You may say its just word order and things, and in a way that is true, however your quote implies a raise in taxes and government income and keeping spending at the same level. My clever rewording implies no tax raises, in fact it allows for tax cuts, though it does mean spending cuts" you see.
clever huh.
My wording implies the government spending less.
You think its subtle, and i guess it is, but its a very important point. Take a jornalist who attended your speech and you can see from the wording you used a head line
"osbourne says taxes must raise to eliminate the deficit"
where as with mine
"Osbourne says government spending must fall to eliminate the deficit"
He specifically and very clearly disavowed the idea of raising taxes to eliminate the deficit.
I wrote a specific post on this earlier in the week noting how the passages in his speech which disavowed the idea of raising taxes to eliminate the deficit echoed the words 38 years ago in which Jim Callaghan disavowed the idea of spending your way out of a recession.
I'll remind you again: he said
"I tell you in all candour, that the option of taxing your way out of a deficit no longer exists, if it ever did.
"In a modern global economy where people can move their investment from one country to another at the touch of a button – and companies can relocate jobs overnight – the economics of high taxation are the economics of the past."
"We choose the future."
Try it this way instead, two ways of saying the same thing that have different implications:
"I need to earn more than I spend" - you see it sounds like I am saying that I need a pay rise.
"I need to spend less than I earn" - that sounds more like I need to curb my spending to live within my means.