By coincidence here in Ireland it was also budget day, the Finance Minister Brian Lenihan delivered a 7% cut in public expenditure to match the 7.5% fall in GDP in 2009. To equal that Alastair Darling would need to have announced £40 billion in public expenditure cuts today.
Here are some of the reasons Guido thinks Ireland will bounce back faster than the UK:
Darling has gone the other way, introducing penal tax rates at the top, and hiking NI payroll taxes on people on only £20,000. He put up VAT which as any left-winger will tell you, is regressive and hits the poorest hardest. What struck Guido was that this is an odd class war political budget, their own core voters are being hit hardest. Low paid, public sector workers on £20,000 get a pay freeze, a tax hike and whacked by VAT increases – a triple whammy.
Ireland welcomes UK corporations with a tax rate nearly half the UK rate and best of all, Lenihan also announced that alcohol and cigarette taxes are to be reduced…