What a cowed people so many of us have become, demoralised and incurious.
asserted
many → become → us
We perk up gratefully at state spending aimed in our direction, but don’t stop to ask where the money is coming from.
asserted
money → perk → where
We cheer rises in the minimum wage while simultaneously bemoaning the lack of jobs for young people.
asserted
We → cheer → people
We applaud attacks on landlords, and wonder why there are so few properties to rent.
asserted
We → applaud → landlords
Our politicians, I’m afraid, have got the measure of us.
asserted
I → ’m → us
They know how to keep a sullen, statist and submissive electorate in check.
asserted
They → know → check
This week, we have had the Budget we asked for.
asserted
we → have → Budget
Commentators had feared a pernickety Budget, one of tiny tweaks, micro-subsidies and fiddly adjustments.
asserted
Commentators → fear → tweaks
In the event, it was almost as if the Chancellor was parodying those predictions.
asserted
Chancellor → parody → predictions
He dispensed small sums sector by sector, charity by charity, almost constituency by constituency.
asserted
He → dispense → constituency
Nothing was too minor to merit a Budget line: £15 million for Dolly Parton’s literacy initiative, £10 million for craft brewers, £6 million for an events space in Glasgow.
asserted
Nothing → merit → Glasgow
It is not just that all this must be paid for.
asserted
this → pay → ?
It is that every grant, every rebate, every exemption, further complicates an already complicated tax system.
asserted
grant → complicate → system
A s the tax regime becomes more administratively expensive, the ratio of pain caused to revenue raised worsens.
asserted
ratio → become → revenue
Our politicians know how to keep a sullen, statist and submissive electorate in check.
asserted
politicians → know → check
This week, we have had the Budget we asked for, writes Daniel Hannan
Tolley’s Tax Guide, the semi-official key to understanding our tax code prepared for accountants and other advisers, has grown from 728 pages at the start of the century to 1,024 today.
asserted
Guide → have → 1,024
Successive Chancellors are to blame.
asserted
Chancellors → blame → ?
Gordon Brown was a particular offender, though George Osborne also has much to answer for.
asserted
Osborne → have → much
No previous Budget, though, created so much needless complexity for so little meaningful change.
asserted
Budget → create → change
How many of us understand that the complexity of a tax system is as bad for growth as the overall level of taxation?
asserted
complexity → understand → taxation
The two things are correlated, in the sense that getting rid of all the fiddly little exemptions allows you to lower the rates, rather as collapsing all the holes in a Swiss cheese would lower its height.
asserted
collapsing → correlate → height
But even if that were not true, the complexity of the system, the time that must be spent on accountants, the perverse incentives, all act as a major drag on growth.
asserted
that → spend → growth
The trouble is that the number of voters who will object in principle to a complex tax system is tiny compared to all the groups who will delight in a bung to this or that cause.
asserted
who → object → this
The most significant number from the recent budget never passed John Healey’s lips.
asserted
number → pass → lips
Half a million people are being dragged into the higher-rate tax band because the Government has frozen the thresholds while inflation has pushed up headline salaries.
asserted
inflation → drag → salaries
The very notion of a ‘higher-rate taxpayer’ bears no resemblance to what it used to mean as recently as the early 2000s.
asserted
it → bear → 2000s
You might think there would be protests about all this.
uncertain
You → think → this
When all the numbers have been run, we may very well find our taxes are higher than they have been since 1945.
uncertain
they → run → 1945
Then, we had mobilised all our resources to defeat Hitler.
asserted
we → mobilise → Hitler
The Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank says this will be the worst decade for household incomes since the Second World War.
asserted
this → say → War
Are we capable of drawing a line from the individually popular spending increases to this dire fact?
asserted
we → draw → fact
As long ago as 1850, the great French economist Frederic Bastiat got to the heart of the issue: ‘There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one.
asserted
economist → get → economist
The bad economist confines himself to the visible effect: the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
asserted
that → confine → effect
This difference is tremendous, for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the later consequences are disastrous.
asserted
consequences → happen → ?
In other words, raise the minimum wage and you might get an approving hearing on BBC radio, from Left-wing think-tanks and ordinary people who worry about the lot of the lowest-paid.
uncertain
who → raise → paid
As a nation, we have been failing Bastiat’s test for a long time.
asserted
we → fail → time
We went along placidly with Net Zero, and now rage about our electricity bills.
asserted
We → go → bills
We don’t want houses built anywhere near us, but we complain about the price of renting and buying property.
asserted
we → want → property
We want to make it harder to fire people, and then wonder why firms are reluctant to employ them.
asserted
firms → want → them
Nothing was too minor to merit a Budget line: £15million for Dolly Parton’s literacy initiative, £10million for craft brewers, £6million for an events space in Glasgow
Most consequentially, we demanded – partly thanks to the BBC – a strict lockdown, and have railed ever since at the tax rises and rampant inflation that were its ineluctable consequences, blaming our politicians for the slide in living standards rather than looking in the mirror.
asserted
that → merit → mirror
…and 23 more, not listed.
The Aporia
