Posts tagged ‘Budget 2010’
Budget 2010: Paying our way
Friday, July 9th, 20102010’s second budget makes a start on cutting the deficit but, as expected, proves unpopular. Supporters see it as a necessity but detractors warn that it will punish the poor. All parties agree on the need to cut the UK’s deficit, totalling £149 billion in borrowing for this financial year. The dividing lines, though, appear over the method needed to fill the country’s fiscal gap. This was clear in the initial comments from the Northern Ireland Secretary and Finance Minister, and further demonstrated as local parties sent in their views. Closer to the coalition, the UUP and Alliance...[full story]
Budget 2010: Going for broke
Friday, July 9th, 2010With the emergency Budget looking to cut the deficit, Owen McQuade looks at the risks of such deep cuts in stalling the economic recovery. The UK’s emergency Budget of 22 June aims to deliver a severe fiscal retrenchment equal to 6.3 per cent of GDP by 2014-2015. Three-quarters of the adjustment will come from spending cuts and the balance from raising taxes, with £113 billion per year knocked off the deficit by 2014-2015. Government spending will fall from 47 per cent of GDP in 2009-2010 to under 41 per cent and borrowing will fall from 11 per cent to 2 per cent. The cyclically adjusted...[full story]
Budget 2010: Businesses on the Budget
Friday, July 9th, 2010Businesses have been largely welcoming of George Osborne’s Budget, particularly the paper into rebalancing Northern Ireland’s economy. The reduction of corporation tax to 24 per cent over the next three years is a positive element of the Budget, but should go further according to local business. “Even after the four years of reduction, our corporation tax will be 6.5 per cent higher than the Republic; a position that is simply not sustainable and any paper which fails to address this point will have little or no impact,” commented Francis Martin, President of the Northern Ireland...[full story]
Budget 2010: Esmond Birnie Q&A
Friday, July 9th, 2010How hard were the hard choices? On 22 June 2010, just 90 days after Alistair Darling warned in his final Budget speech that “there are tough choices ahead”, his successor, George Osborne, told a packed House of Commons: “I will not hide hard choices”, and he didn’t. Esmond Birnie, Chief Economist with PricewaterhouseCoopers, reads the Budget tea-leaves to see just how hard those choices really were. George Osborne described it as the “unavoidable Budget”. Was it? Not exactly – this was a Budget of choice, but it wasn’t much of a choice. Osborne had to send a message...[full story]
