Should the voting age be raised?

[BadFish]

100% spot on. Who honestly thinks anything Corbyn proposed for students or the NHS or police or public sector pay is bad? Nobody would, except for the fact that he can't do so without trashing the economy again with a trillion pound borrowing binge. We already today spend more as a country than we make and thus a deficit, we already spend more in interest payments on our national debt than we do on education. And yet borrowing like crazy is cheered as anti austerity. Let's say he had got in, he'd borrow at insane levels, raise taxes, stifling the economy.

He'd then throw money today at all these things like students and police etc which would see a short term present benefit to those in receipt, but now the national debt and deficit doubles.... So what's the plan? When does it stop, or does it continue until bankruptcy ensues? You or I can't spend 4 times what we earn yet many think Corbyn can somehow? Sooner or later, taxes are raised on everyone, the credit rating is downgraded and borrowing/servicing debt is more expensive and labour champion their "investment " in public services, along come the nasty Torys to end the fiscal madness and it's all "cuts" to public services. When will people learn, you can only pay for from that which you earn.

A strong economy is the platform for long term investment in services, trashing the economy is the best way to provide a short term hit followed by years of pain and cuts. Nobody can or will ever find a genuine way to deliver Corbyn like spending plans without massive borrowing and cuts in the future, unless of course we can quadruple our national income. It's fantasy.

I haven't looked in detail at the Labour manifesto costings but they seem convinced it is fully costed and budgeted for. You can hardly predict that the proposed government are going to "Borrow like crazy" without addressing the costing and budgets from the manifesto.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...rs-manifesto-cost-pledges-money-guide-details

The bulk of it looks like it will come of making companies pay their required amount of tax (and raising it). Can't see what is wrong with that myself. The Tory's have tried to get the poorest and most vulnerable to pay to lower the deficit but that didn't work (quelle surprise: asking people that you have raped cash from for 30 years to pay more then find out that they havn't got anything). There is certainly enough dosh in the UK, maybe it is just about looking in the right places for it. Have a crack at the rich who have more than they need, see if that works.

 

[RexCathedra]

Funny that people think they/others are "voting selfishly" when they vote Conservative.

Unless you're in the top 1%, you're not voting selfishly.

Assumes economic self-interest is the only kind of self-interest.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

Do you know what, you lot go on and on and on, as do I, because at heart we are all self righteous. Should we not agree to disagree and get on with life? At the end of the day you will always have policies that you don't like, even within the party you vote for (shock, horror). It's all pointless really, we end up with someone else we don't like eventually and the whole cycle starts all over again. I think, personally, it is much easier to have the life where we expect nothing and anything else is a bonus. Right now I am up shit street with no paddle, but I have been here before. I shall be here again, but in between I do ok. I don't rely on Government to make a living. I rely on the love of my family, friends and a decent job. The rest is bullshit. We make our own lives guys, the rest is an aside.

 

[OzMike]

Yes, to 21

 

[RexCathedra]

The voting age should be lowered to zero.
The people who are going to live in the world the politicians are making for them today don't get to vote at all.

 

[nicko31]

If is raised to 21, perhaps it needs to end at 75.

Neither will happen, a reduction to 16 would be far more progressive and far more likely

 

[HastingsSeagull]

Lot's of old people clearly don't understand politics either. If anything I'd lower the age to 16. And make the max age about 65/70

 

[KingKev]

What a complete & utter disgrace you are for suggesting such a thing. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Can't we just ban all Londoners & all other Northerners from voting? Harsh but fair!!

Fixed for you

 

[pastafarian]

Really quite astonishing to hear people from the " progressive left" argue how people should lose the right to vote because these people dont yield to their thinking.
How mad is that?

 

[HitchinSeagull]

Really quite astonishing to hear people from the " progressive left" argue how people should lose the right to vote because these people dont yield to their thinking.
How mad is that?

absolute insanity, along with people from the 'non progressive right' suggesting people should lose their right to vote because these people don't yield to their thinking, or suggesting getting more people eligible to vote out voting is in some way a bad thing.

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[Super Steve Earle]

What evidence do you have that many degrees are the present day equivalent of 5 GCSEs?

Fair point. Some of the graduates who turn up to work at our place would surely struggle to get 5 decent GCSEs!

 

[beorhthelm]

I haven't looked in detail at the Labour manifesto costings but they seem convinced it is fully costed and budgeted for. You can hardly predict that the proposed government are going to "Borrow like crazy" without addressing the costing and budgets from the manifesto.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...rs-manifesto-cost-pledges-money-guide-details

The bulk of it looks like it will come of making companies pay their required amount of tax (and raising it). Can't see what is wrong with that myself.

the major problem with Labours "costed" budget is the 19bn from corporation tax doesnt come through until 2020-2021, while all the costs start paying out in 2018-2019 (assuming they wouldnt immediatly increase nurses wages etc). and then Corbyn went and promised free tuition fees start in 2017-2018 (this autumn), so there an immediate £11bn hole in their budget. you then have tax raised in areas that are highly sensitive to behaviour change. corporation tax assumes companies and profits are maintained at current projections. the over 80k tax band is an area where people will change their financial arrangments (more pension contributions the obvious one). tax avoidance revenue could disappear if the targeted loop holes cant be closed for whatever reasons (they've not been specified), similar with the Corporation tax relief changes. so there about £16bn that is susceptible to change, if the get 75% of that they have another £5bn hole. you might like the politics of it all, but the financials dont really stack up.

then theres the elephant in the room, the £250bn promised unfunded infrastructure spend. thats very much borrowing like crazy, ditching any notion of balance budgets with this massive surge in state spending on unspecified projects which would inevitably lead to rising, unbudgeted costs to the departments running that infrastructure.

 

[Wrong-Direction]

Lot's of old people clearly don't understand politics either. If anything I'd lower the age to 16. And make the max age about 65/70

This

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[PILTDOWN MAN]

This

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Funny how lefties always want to lower the age knowing they can offer the world but then expect tory voters to pay for it.

 

[peterward]

But austerity has failed. Failed to reduce the budget deficit and reduce the national debt as promised (do not quote bullshit about figures after the US caused financial crisis), failed to increase growth in the economy, failed the people of this country as the heart is ripped out of it with cuts to everything.

It's actually sound economic policy to invest to grow. And yes, invest in education as well as bricks and mortar etc. What the **** is wrong with that? In the long run, you win.

We're not Greece, we have ridiculously low bond rates, the current government is borrowing massively already but imposing "austerity" on the weakest and it's NOT working.

It. Makes. No. Sense.

do you know nothing about economics? did you even check what you said with facts or is it straight from the morning star? the deficit has reduced significantly, though it still exists and the economy has outgrown all the others in the G20 for most years since 2010... what utter bullshite, though I agree services have been cut and thats not good, but unemployment is at record lows and this is the lesson you need to learn, whenever the state overspends or doesnt prepare for financial calamity, the result will always be austerity and cuts, you really think sustained trillion pound spending can be made without a day of recokoning and pain down the line? youre deluded



The US did not cause the financial crises in this country, we had the worst and deepest recession of an economy in the G20? why? because in the good years, borrowing continued, there was never any attempt to prepare for a what if or fix the roof while the sun shined, its was debt and deficit, Brown sold off the last of the states Gold and we were screwed. the Catalyst for the global crash was the US sub prime mortgage scandals, but the depth of the affects on the UK was 100% the responsibility of Labour economic mismanagement, our wealth built on a mountain of consumer debt, is a a house built on sand.

"There is no money left"... how true, and yet apologists today try and rewrite history and blame it on everyone and everything and remove their own huge culpability.

Yes borrowing has gone up and it may suit you to take that in isolation, but because the economy as a whole has boomed and outstripped expectations so has revenue/GDP, so whilst debt has gone up, the deficit has reduced as income is higher.

So what is this "anti austerity plan" you speak of? is it the one where half the monies raised by Corbyns increase in Corporation tax will bring in less money than the record receipts today? will you admit that this so called "investment" can only be made by by massive additional borrowing and ramping up the deficit to level again close to 2010? because that is his plan. Then when we get there and everyone has enjoyed 2 years of increases in services... whats the new plan? how do you sustain it, with a tanking economy...again, reduction in the credit rating, with record debt and back close to 2010 deficit levels.... what is the repayment plan for tomorrow with the Jam today borrowing? There isnt one, its going to mean more austerity and cuts, no human, no country can live with this type of economic plan. corbyn cannot pay for 1 1/10th of his plans except by debt and deficit...... Yes if the countrys output/income is increased you can borrow more against that and keep a relatively stable deficit, but history shows and any economic experiment will show, that high taxes, high borrowing will slow down an economy, reducing the economies output/income which in turn reduces the natural level of borrowing that can be made against it.

Of course with Corbyn this doesnt matter, its the same as its always been with any hard left socialist government, tax/spend, tax/spend until the money runs out and the economy is trashed.

 

[nicko31]

Funny how lefties always want to lower the age knowing they can offer the world but then expect tory voters to pay for it.

The Tories really have tried quite hard to stop the young from voting. What was the next plan, photo ID to stop the poor too?

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Based on?

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The question is where does the money come from. It can only really come from taxation or borrowing. Increases in taxation will not provide sufficient revenue in the next couple of years to increase public spending in the way Labour wish. It's not even clear how much will actually be raised by tax increases because simply raising a tax does not necessarily increase the tax received by Government. This leaves borrowing as the only option (especially in the short term). Like all economic policy this is not consequence free. Government borrowing comes in the form of selling bonds to private investors at auctions. With large increases in Government borrowing there will be a large increase in bond supply with downward pressure on price and investors will therefore only buy it the interest rates offered increase. We then enter a higher interest rate economy and there is nothing more regressive than higher mortgage rates. It is fine for Labour to propose this way forward but everyone needs to be as honest about its consequences as we are about the impact of austerity.

 

[peterward]

I haven't looked in detail at the Labour manifesto costings but they seem convinced it is fully costed and budgeted for. You can hardly predict that the proposed government are going to "Borrow like crazy" without addressing the costing and budgets from the manifesto.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...rs-manifesto-cost-pledges-money-guide-details

The bulk of it looks like it will come of making companies pay their required amount of tax (and raising it). Can't see what is wrong with that myself. The Tory's have tried to get the poorest and most vulnerable to pay to lower the deficit but that didn't work (quelle surprise: asking people that you have raped cash from for 30 years to pay more then find out that they havn't got anything). There is certainly enough dosh in the UK, maybe it is just about looking in the right places for it. Have a crack at the rich who have more than they need, see if that works.

That's like looking at conservative costings in the telegraph!!

Simply put, on paper it seems there numbers add up, except they don't, because the biggest revenue raiser of 19.4 billion from inc Corp tax from 19 to 26% will not raise anything. It was at 26p not long ago and now at 19p our actual Corp tax income has gone up, it's at record highs.

I've already done this one and so have many.independent economists with no affiliation to labour, Torys or labour supporting newspapers. Labour's 19.4 number comes from a very basic premise that for each 1p inc in Corp tax it could raise just shy of 3 billion. Except that basic calculation, being used doesn't consider they other key caveat. It requires everything to remain exactly the same as today. Same investment by foreign companies, same spending, recruitment investment by companies same increasing employment levels. Corp tax is finely interlinked with profit margin and a raft of spending decisions by business, nothing will stay the same, many businesses will move resulting not in 26% but 100% of nothing, those that can't won't spend as planned (with associated 20% Vat receipts) they won't recruit at the same levels (more unemployment benefits) and some with wafer thin profit margins will fold or downsize. It's proven that lower Corp tax = higher total tax receipts and has numerous secondary benefits with spending and VAT.

It was 26p not long ago and we raised 6 billion less than we do at 19p, so what is this miracle formula?

Non partisan economists say it simply doesn't add up, because it really doesn't.

So the real choice will be ditch much of what was promised or borrow. Add this to the 1/4 trillion on infrastructure spending and it's serious pain just down the road.

fwiw I would love everything Corbyn promised, but I will not ignore the fact it's unachievable without trashing the economy and painful cuts again in future. There is no money tree.

I could promise you a nicer house, a luxury sports cat, yearly cinema tickets and a 5 star holiday in the Maldives if you just give me full control of your finances.

No doubt you'll love driving with the roof down on your way to Gatwick for this amazing free giveaway. But very soon you'll realise every credit line is gone, the holidays over, the cars gone and the debt is on you and there's no running from it.

If only I went to Spain for a week and bought a modest car I could afford.

Luckily most live like conservatives in the real world from their family budgets.

 

[Live by the sea]

Definitely, age should be raised to 21. Too many daft idealistic students voting for Jeremy ' Marxist ' Corbyn.

The working class think he's like them, trust me he isn't. He won't help anyone, other than drag our country back 60 years and ruin our economy.

Complete and utter idiot is as polite a comment I can make.

 

[Horses Arse]

The question is where does the money come from. It can only really come from taxation or borrowing. Increases in taxation will not provide sufficient revenue in the next couple of years to increase public spending in the way Labour wish. It's not even clear how much will actually be raised by tax increases because simply raising a tax does not necessarily increase the tax received by Government. This leaves borrowing as the only option (especially in the short term). Like all economic policy this is not consequence free. Government borrowing comes in the form of selling bonds to private investors at auctions. With large increases in Government borrowing there will be a large increase in bond supply with downward pressure on price and investors will therefore only buy it the interest rates offered increase. We then enter a higher interest rate economy and there is nothing more regressive than higher mortgage rates. It is fine for Labour to propose this way forward but everyone needs to be as honest about its consequences as we are about the impact of austerity.

They were pretty clear about where it is coming from. What amazes me is that the government has demonstrated repeated incompetence and lies yet some people are still willing to give them their vote on the basis of scaremongering. Trust those that have lied and screwed up in fear that another government might do the same. Bizarre.