Thursday, August 23, 2012

Value for money?

It's still staggering that MP's though nervous over the criticism of the foreign aid budget can't quite seem to grasp what true value is. True value is not collecting the budget off our taxation, value represents spending it on the people of the UK who need it. It really is that simple in my eyes, though for the life of me, MP's just cannot grasp this...
Express.
BRITAIN’S overseas aid effort should focus on helping poor countries collect their own taxes so they become less dependent on UK ­taxpayers, a report out today says.
A cross-party committee of MPs says a reliable flow of cash from income, sales, property and company taxes, offers developing nations a much better way out of ­poverty than handouts from Britain or other countries.
It urges the Department for International Development and HM Revenue and Customs to help ensure that unofficial workers and unregistered businesses are brought into tax systems in countries that receive aid.
Governing “elites” and multinational corporations should also pay – and be seen to pay – their fair share.
Britain’s aid spending is set to rise from £12billion this year to £14billion in 2014 to meet international targets, after DfID was spared the austerity cuts wielded on most other departments.
International Development Committee chairman Sir Malcolm Bruce said: “It represents excellent value for money, for the countries concerned and for UK taxpayers.”
No, it does not represent excellent value for money, it does not represent value for money full stop! Much of the aid is siphoned off by kleptocracies and in other countries like India it helps them fund their Mars mission, something our country cannot afford. We'll have pensioners dying of the cold this winter, our education and benefits system is a shambles and please, please don't get me started on the NHS.
The foreign aid budget is for when times are good, when times are hard it's slashed and either the money not collected as taxation, or spent on UK projects such as educating kids and keeping pensioners warm.
Charity begins at home, those bastards in Westminster have never bothered to ask us where we want our money spent, I doubt they'd like the results of that question anyway (which is why I suspect they don't ask) If I want to give to charity that should be my choice, not the imbeciles in Westminster and not by taxation, not now, not ever!

1 annotations:

James Higham said...

Yep - needs slashing now.