They never learn

Tax and spend has gotten us into this current mess where the previous government ended up spending more than it brought in, raised taxes and then decided it was a brilliant idea to print more money as well.

Telegraph.

In his first major speech after Ed Miliband made the surprise decision to give Mr Johnson the Treasury brief, he said Labour would raise more from taxes than planned by the Coalition.

The Opposition is now advocating a percentage split between cuts and tax rises of 60-40, having previously committed to 70-30. George Osborne, the Chancellor, will go further when he announces this week that spending cuts will make up around 70 per cent of the savings needed to tackle the deficit.

Mr Johnson, who has no economic background and has never held a Treasury job for Labour, also attacked the 35 business leaders who have signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph backing Mr Osborne’s plans.

Outlining why he believed Mr Osborne was wrong, Mr Johnson said: “"Our policy remains to halve the deficit by 2013-14. But I have looked again at the way in which we deliver that reduction, at the balance of tax and spending.

"My view is that specific, targeted tax changes need to do more of the work."

He said he would work with the Government on "targeted tax rises that do not affect low and middle income families". 

Mr Johnson claimed that the banks should be paying an extra £3.5 billion a year in taxes to offset cuts in investment. He said that the Government's plans for a bank levy were “inadequate” compared with the pain being inflicted on children and families through public spending cuts.

The business leaders who signed the letter said that the private sector would be able to provide the jobs for those who lose out in the public sector because of the cut backs to Whitehall services. But Mr Johnson disputed that.

The shadow chancellor said the Tories' plans to eliminate the structural deficit in four years represented "a huge gamble with growth and jobs". And he warned that the private sector recovery could not be "taken for granted".

Johnson like most politicians seems to have forgotten a few key rules of life.
1) When in a hole, stop digging.
2) You can't keep spending what you haven't got.
3) Sooner or later the money you get in simply pays the debt and leaves nothing for anything else.
4) It's not your money to play with it's the taxpayers!

Politics, particularly the politics of the left seems to attract the hard of thinking after all, socialism is supposed to provide all the answers, despite the fact that everywhere its been tried, its failed miserably (and no the Scandinavian countries aren't beacons of socialism, they have high income tax but low business tax)
So, considering we're in a recession, possibly heading for a double dip recession, what is Labours answer? To carry on with the failed policies that put us there in the first place.

You really couldn't make it up, then again a definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result Perhaps they new politically correct definition of an insane person should be "socialistically inclined"