All in all, he could have delivered a worse budget. Not saying I fully agree with it all, but if he is serious about a private sector led recovery, then this is not a bad start. Dropping corporation tax to encourage companies to invest in UK jobs is possibly the best bit, although there are other ways of encouraging inward investment that don't reduce the tax take as much, but to moan about that would be churlish on my part. Personally, I will be worse off by this budget, but the government is not just for me, it is for us all and I ain't about to starve. There is one fundamental part I disagree with though, and stating it could have me being seen to agree with Ed Balls and that would never do. However; Osborne feels you need to address the deficit before you can talk growth. I reckon there is a case for growth to address the deficit. The trick is to use growth to to reduce deficit rather than the quick political trick of spending the growth in wooing voters, as an election always seems to come around when the country's coffers can be robbed, so we never spend growth to pay for yesterday. Hence the mess we are in. (I accept that the last government were incompetent, but every Tory & Lib Dem MP has been told to preface every statement / interview with "the mess the last lot left us in" and it is becoming tiresome hearing it. We have had almost a year of this government and indicators such as inflation, GDP etc have their effect in the figures now.) Oh, and the inheritance tax break for charities. Fine thought, but as it is using money that would otherwise go to the treasury in order to give to charities, my fear is that childrens' and fluffy bunny rabbits charities will do well, and charities looking after vulnerable older people will do less well. But I suppose that's people power and the big society eh?
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