Daily Archives: 18 March 2016

Tough To Do Inside the EU, Though

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Here’s an area where it really would be good to look like Europe, or at least the UK part of it.

UK Treasury chief George Osborne unveiled a major shake-up of corporate taxes in Britain on Wednesday, saying he intends to lower the main rate companies pay to less than half the rate levied on firms in the US.

Of course, such tax rate competition is hard to do in the EU, what with the European Commission’s utter dislike for it.

It may be that the British really will need to leave the European Union, if they want to compete in the global economy.

The House Budget Blueprint On Offer

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The debate is well worth having.

House conservatives have vowed to block a fiscal 2017 budget put forth by Republican leadership Tuesday, saying it doesn’t cut spending enough and creating uncertainty over the GOP’s ability to pass a fiscal blueprint this year.

Never mind that the blueprint cuts spending by $6.5 trillion over the next 10 years and, if future Congresses stick to the plan would eliminate deficits and so permit beginning to pay down the nation’s $19 trillion debt.  The cuts in the first year of these 10 years don’t go far enough to suit these self-styled conservatives (small-c, you’ll note).

It’s certainly true that real cuts in the hand are worth two (or more) promised cuts in later years; however, this is the first budget plan in decades that actually, explicitly promises those later cuts and to that concrete end.

But: as these guys consider blowing up another budget plan, they need to ask themselves how much spending they’ll be able to cut if they force a plan that has no hope of being enacted?  What do they think will be the value of their political symbolism?