Here's an idea: Fuck the Deficit.
What I want to see the government doing is working to reduce individual debt.
Don't freeze wages - instead, make the minimum wage a living wage, something that will allow us to keep our children fed and ourselves out of the gutter without borrowing from payday loan sharks or credit card companies or anyone else who's trying to lend us their money.
Stop cutting benefits - instead, make sure that people who are out of work, the vast majority of whom didn't choose that status, can still afford to survive.
Stop selling off the NHS, and instead employ more doctors and nurses to reduce waiting times and improve performance.
Stop bailing out banks, and instead use the money set aside for that to offer incentives to companies not to lay off their workers and make the remainder work harder, perhaps even to hire new workers.
Stop demanding a degree for every council cleaning job and instead make university more affordable for those who want to go.
Stop denying select groups of people council housing and instead build affordable homes for first-time buyers, or buy up existing property for council tenants.
Does all that sound expensive to you? I'm no economist, but it probably is. I mean, hell, we'd probably have to borrow more to get that sort of system in place. But don't the general population sound happier, and healthier? In the long term, doesn't it sound like a better answer to the problems we're facing?
But what about the national deficit, I see you typing in your reblog. I'm getting to that. See, as mentioned above, I'm no economist - so this may not work and I'd love to hear your detailed answers as to why, if and when you reblog this - but it seems to me that the country as a whole is in a much better position to be in debt than you or me.
Go into a bank and ask for a loan and they'll start trying to ascertain your chances of paying it back (as opposed to them taking your house, which is a lot of paperwork really). They'll ask you questions like whether you're employed, what you're going to do with the money (is it an investment, or are you gonna blow it on buying a tiger and training it to ride a speedboat and come back empty-handed?) and what you can offer in terms of collateral. A house, for example, or that acre of land in Scotland your mad great-uncle Hamish left you for reasons you honestly don't understand given that both you and he were born and raised in Cornwall.
Now, a lot of people in the UK are unemployed and aren't bringing any money in between a tiny handful of Jobseeker's Allowance and, if they're very luck, some housing benefit. Many of them are spending their money on things that won't come back or give a financial reward, like food, or rent, or even university degrees these days. And because most of them are renting, they don't really have a lot to mortgage for a loan.
That's the individual. Let's put the same questions to the UK as a single entity (you can worry about individual countries declaring independence later, let me get my point across here while Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England are still a merry band of buddies). Alright. Let's go.
So, is the country employed, or more appropriately, is it bringing in a regular income? Well, we've got a pretty good tourist trade going for a country that spends most of the year in perpetual drizzle. We've got pretty good farming and fishing going on, our education and healthcare are world-reknowned, and we bring in a fair amount of dough from the service industry (at least, according to Wikipedia and its cited sources). Somewhat ironically, we're not bad in the financial services sector either, and construction and production were both doing pretty well before the UK's individuals stopped being able to afford to build houses or wind farms or, well, anything, really. So... yeah, we're bringing in an income.
What would we be doing with the money? Well, if the government implemented even some of the proposals outlined above, I reckon they'd be making a pretty solid investment in the population. And if the people can afford to eat, they'll be more productive workers, etc. etc, the capitalist machine flourishes, people are happier and we actually should bring in a bit more money. I mean for one thing, if people are better off, they're paying a higher tax rate, so that works out well for everyone. Maybe it's just me liking my own ideas, but... well, I think this could be profitable in the long run.
And lastly, do we have anything to put against the loan in the highly unlikely event that we default on it (given the general longevity of these loans and the fact that, as previously stated, this should be a pretty solid investment plan)? Well... we've got a country. Assuming Mr Cameron hasn't sold it all off in the ten to fifteen minutes since I last checked the news, we've got quite a lot of stuff that could be worth money if someone we've borrowed from really does come round with a crowbar threatening to bash our heads in. But you see, selling off the green belt, or the NHS, or the police force, or the prisons - those things should be a last resort, because those things should belong to the government, on behalf of the people.
Ooh, the government on behalf of the people. There's a concept we've almost forgotten around here, because it feels like a long time since we've seen it. And that's what we need - a government that will shoulder the burden of a larger national debt on behalf of the people. The country can stand it. Its people, individually, can't.
