In the last budget the income tax personal allowance was raised substantially, a move that overwhelmingly benefited those on or above the minimum wage. Ed Balls, speaking for Labour, called for income taxes to keep hitting those just avove the minimum wage to enable VAT to be kept down for people on Ed Balls’ salary – MPs pays a larger proportion of their income in VAT than someone on the minimum wage.
Not a single Labour politician slapped Ed Balls down, although in private both Alastair Darling and Ed Miliband have argued for a rise in VAT in cabinet.
Now Councillor Phil Smart – the Holywells Resident Councillor for Bridge Ward – thinks we have another reason to tax those just above the minimum wage. He wants shop assistants to pay higher income taxes to lower the train fares that people like myself and Phil Smart pay to get to work. Both of us commute, both of us are stung by the higher fares and both of us earn above the average wage – like most commuters.
I don’t like paying higher fares, but I recognise that to get Gordon Brown’s deficit down I have to. I also think that people like me and Phil Smart are better placed to pay to get this deficit down than a part time working mother struggling to pay child care or a pensioner with a few thousand extra a year in their work provided pension. Phil Smart thinks that they should pay before he does.
Labour have for years been a party of white collar public sector middle managers who think that the rest of the country should revolve around them. Phil Smart is a white collar public sector worker on an above average salary who thinks that you should continue subsidising his rail fares.
Workers of the World - Subsidise Me
