Spending and Revenue

Over on Capitalists@Work they've got the wikipedia pie chart showing where all the government's money comes from.

I've seen that pie chart many times, its one of my favourites, it helps put spending into some kind of context.

See here on Iain Dale's blog.

I have just seen the news that the UK budget deficit has grown to £9 billion. A year ago it was just over £1 billion.

So, £8 billion in a year, if that was instead a cost saving, you could get rid of all alcohol duties, spirit duties, wine duties, beer and cider duties.

The RBS, Lloyds TSB, HBOS could pay for Fuel duty, Vehicle Excise Duty and Petroleum revenue taxes, they could all just vanish.

I love XKCD too, he neatly reminds us that whilst our governments are racking up huge unfunded debts, they could have cut taxes and let the people spend our own money however we see fit. But instead we're energy ongetting excitied by bonuses and trivial matters like Sir John Goodwin's £0.014 billion pension.