BenGarfield
Active member
The question is based on a false premise, namely that taxes fund government spending. They don`t. In a country with a sovereign fiat currency such as the UK, USA or Japan, the main purpose of tax is to make sure that the currency is used, to guard against inflation, and for other reasons such as health and equality purposes. The government creates new money when it spends and destroys it when it taxes. When the goverment spends more than it taxes, which people mistakenly call borrowing, or the defecit, this is the money that is used by all of us for our day to day expenditure and our savings. The British economy is not like a household. So, provided that the economy is not overheated and inflation rates are rising, exceedingly unlikely at the moment, both the nurses (and other public workers), and workers on furlough should be paid sufficiently to enjoy a good standard of living, which would also help keep the economy ticking over whilst lock-down is in place.