So the Government decided to leak alot of the Budget over the weekend. The main points being:
Taoiseachs salary down 14% to a paltry 228,000
Ministers pay a further 5% on top of the 10% voluntary pay cut.
Varying reductions for senior civil servants
Varying across the board Public sector pay cuts
4% reduction in social welfare payments
10% cut in Child benefits
The %'s vary depending on which paper you read. There’s a carbon tax to go in there somewhere and I’m sure a few other bits but it does like non-civil service PAYE workers should escape any major pain? Or are am I reading it wrong?
Another opportunity for a third tax rate is missed.
They should really be cutting VAT but they’re too afraid to try anything even semi-adventurous with the revenue side of things, even though it’s revenue that has collapsed, not expenditure that has grown.
Obviously this may all change in the actual budget but at the moment it looks like another horribly conservative budget that just puts structures around the current deficit instead of tackling the underlying issues. Seems crazy that the burden for balancing the economy is placed almost exclusively on public employees and social welfare recipients. Well done IBEC I suppose.
No sign of any “jobs stimulus package” either. I suppose it wouldn’t sit well to be cutting the pay of public sector workers with one hand while pumping money into creating private sector jobs with the other. There needs to be something big done though to get people working and paying tax, as Rocko said, it’s the tax take that has fallen, so that is what they should be focusing on trying to increase. Perhaps lowers rates of PRSI for new employees or something?
The minimum wage in this country is far too high at €8.65. It should be reduced significantly along with a significant reduction in the dole. I had to laugh recently when a lad I know who works for a city council said that families on the housing list being housed were coming back into the council complaining that the bedrooms weren’t ensuite… Sometimes you’d wonder why anyone would bother working in this republic.
At the moment somebody on full dole claiming extra benefits is coming away with more than a minimum wage worker doing 40 a hours a week. Something seriously wrong there.
The hoteliers/hospitality crowds have been lobbying for a reduction in the min wage for a good while now.
Fine Shannonsider, I’ll take care of that and you take care of reducing mortgages, food prices, school books, and energy costs. We’ll meet Friday with the finished package.
Don’t be fucking ridiculous on a serious thread[/quote]
Interest rates are down. Thus mortgages are cheaper.
Energy costs have fallen for the first time in over a decade.
Grocery prices are well down on previous levels.
The fall in the cost of living to July of this year was over 7% this decline has continued into the second half of the year.
So WTB the question is why are you being ridiculous on a serious thread. :rolleyes:
[quote=“Julio Geordio”]Interest rates are down. Thus mortgages are cheaper.
Energy costs have fallen for the first time in over a decade.
Grocery prices are well down on previous levels.
The fall in the cost of living to July of this year was over 7% this decline has continued into the second half of the year.
So WTB the question is why are you being ridiculous on a serious thread. :rolleyes:[/quote]
I see, so moderate declines in commodity prices during a recession represent permanent declines not at all prone to fluctuation and not at all the first things to enter into an upward curve on emergence from the recession which the same economists who provided those statistics predict will occur at the end of next year. Now I know you’re not suggesting that political adjustment of the statuatory minimum wage happens as easily as market fluctutations because that would be absurd. Therefore you must be advocating a permanent reduction in the living standards of Irish society’s (one of the most unequal societies in western europe) lowest earners on the basis of some unspecified economic or ideological principle.
It must be quite galling for a man of Republican leanings, such as yourself, to find himself in a situation whereby it is obvious to all concerned that we, as a nation, would be far better off now if we were within the Commonwealth or even better still part of the United Kingdom. What exactly did Independance give us?
Civil War
The Children of the Nation abused
Emigration
Various Swindles - Beef tribunal, Off shore a/cs
Thieving Taoisigh
Terrible infrastructure
Terrible Health Service
Handout culture
Banking crises leading to the Bankruptcy of the Nation
etc etc
You said that these things needed to fall before the minimum wage could. I merely pointed out that they have fallen.
I think therefore you’ll find that you were the one that suggested that these things be taken into account, not me.
Sometimes its better to think before you talk or you find that you’ll end up contradicting yourself mate
Looks like a simply inept budget from reports I have read. Vast majority of cost cuttings in social welfare and Public Sector Pay decreases. I know the line that will come out on Wednesday will be that they tried to protect the vulnerable but in reality that is way off the mark. From what I have read the super high earners in public sector will be cut 7% while low earners will be cut 5%. Not near of enough of a difference there. They could have easily introduced a third rate of tax, cut VAT and protect those earning less than 50,000 in public sector but that might have required a bit of imagination. Wonder how many FF backbenchers will be up in arms about failure to introduce third tax rate. Precious few I believe. They complain about drink driving, reforms to public sector while no major outcry over corruption, health service, prefabricated buildings used as schools for last ten years at huge cost etc etc. In reality too many of them are lead by Tony O’Reilly and business groups like IBEC.
what about this bolloxology of people under 23 gettig their dole cut if they don’t take jobs or training courses, this should be across the fucking board:mad:
