Budgets

[passage]

How should we judge government budgets? For example the 50p tax rate was due to drop to 40% this April, Osborne changed that to drop to 45%. Should we think of that as

Comments

[chess]

Neither; if we're judging the objectives and priorities of the government we need a wider picture than just the individual data point (who argued for which position, and why? what were the motivations behind the eventual compromise?)...

[passage]

Good point. Plus it might be cleverer for me to ask not 'did it go up or down?' but 'is it now too high or too low?'

[ext_1174494]

'Did it go up or down' seems a reasonable question to ask if assessing whether the Government is doing something you approve of, and hence whether this is a plus or minus in terms of voting for them again.