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'Green' Lib Dems Promise They Will Penalise Wealth (UK)
The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 9-20-2006 | George Jones - Brendan Carlin

Posted on 09/19/2006 5:54:55 PM PDT by blam

'Green' Lib Dems promise they will penalise wealth

By George Jones and Brendan Carlin

(Filed: 20/09/2006)

The Liberal Democrats took a decisive shift to the Left yesterday by enthusiastically adopting a tax package which could leave two million people £2,500 a year worse off.

Although the party leadership claimed it would hit only the "top 10 per cent" – and millions of lower-income people would pay less tax – the measures will begin to bite on a family with an income over £54,000 a year.

As Charles Kennedy received a warm reception on his return to the political front line at the party conference in Brighton, his successor Sir Menzies Campbell signalled that he wanted to take the party to the Left of New Labour with a "redistributive" tax package.

Mr Kennedy, looking confident as he made his first big speech since admitting a drink problem and quitting as party leader, pledged loyalty to Sir Menzies.

But he made clear that he intended to remain in politics and had not ruled out a comeback.

Sir Menzies said the party was "penalising wealth", with higher taxes on pension contributions, savings and second homes, while Vince Cable, the party's treasury spokesman, admitted that new green taxes to curb pollution were intended to "hurt" the consumer.

It was the most open attack on the wealthy by any mainstream party since the former Labour chancellor, Denis Healey, told his party conference in 1973 there were "going to be howls of anguish from those rich enough to pay over 80 per cent on their last slice of earnings".

Sir Menzies survived the first major test of his authority as leader when the party voted overwhelmingly to back the plans to tax "pollution and wealth" and scrap the party's previous symbolic commitment to a 50p tax rate on the highest earners.

The Lib Dems' decision to embrace high taxes for the wealthy places the party firmly to the Left of New Labour, with Sir Menzies later insisting no one should be in any doubt about his determination to redistribute wealth in favour of the disadvantaged in society.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: dems; green; lib; penalise; promise; wealth; will

1 posted on 09/19/2006 5:54:57 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam

Yeah, get Madonna, Lindsey Lohan etc


2 posted on 09/19/2006 5:57:30 PM PDT by golfisnr1 (look at a map)
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To: blam
Sir Menzies said the party was "penalising wealth"

He should also come right out and say directly that he wants to steal their property just exactly the same as a criminal does.

3 posted on 09/19/2006 6:02:01 PM PDT by mjp
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To: blam

No better way to demotivate people than to make them work, then take their money. And no better way to damage an economy than to do the same.


4 posted on 09/19/2006 6:02:03 PM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
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To: blam

Too late---the hildabeast already promised to do that.


5 posted on 09/19/2006 6:03:35 PM PDT by taillightchaser (!)
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To: blam

The very rich will just hide their wealth, take it out of the country or work just hard enough to avoid the tax. Tax revenues will DROP as will savings and investment ...who will any after tax money to save or invest? This is the formula for economic stagnation if not total disaster.


6 posted on 09/19/2006 7:41:36 PM PDT by The Great RJ ("Mir wölle bleiwen wat mir sin" or "We want to remain what we are." ..Luxembourg motto)
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To: The Great RJ

Isn't that what U2 did. Bono, talk about a hypocrite.


7 posted on 09/19/2006 10:23:37 PM PDT by art_rocks
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To: blam; All
...penalise wealth...

Great- that means they'll get less of it.

Ever get a job from a poor man?

The tagline is true...

8 posted on 09/20/2006 3:19:16 AM PDT by backhoe ("It's so Easy to spend somebody else's Money..."[ My Dad. circa 1958 ])
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To: art_rocks
U2's Bono avoids taxes
9 posted on 09/20/2006 3:25:24 AM PDT by mewzilla (Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. John Adams)
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To: art_rocks
And on the suject of Paul McCartney and taxes...

What rocks is capitalism... yeah, yeah, yeah

10 posted on 09/20/2006 3:31:55 AM PDT by mewzilla (Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. John Adams)
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To: The Great RJ

"The very rich will just hide their wealth, take it out of the country or work just hard enough to avoid the tax. Tax revenues will DROP as will savings and investment ...who will any after tax money to save or invest? This is the formula for economic stagnation if not total disaster."

They did it before. Remember the Rolling Stones having to flee to France as tax exiles in the 70's? 80%, 90% tax rates were common then, and could go higher - without shelters or exile status, a lot of the UK's top performers, artists, and musicians would have had all of their money get confiscated for taxes. The tax rates were shocking. The politicians who enacted such tax codes were generally wealthy from family money, and their wealth was locked away behind trusts and such, and they rarely if ever actually held jobs.

I lived in London in the late 70's. It was dismal. Their standard of living compared to the US was shocking - I expect it'll return to that. And the UK had come so far, mostly from Thatcher, to reversing their third world status. How dare the British commoners expect to enjoy their wealth and twiddle it away on things like dvds and computers and cars? Don't they know they have Islamic Terrorists to educate, feed, clothe, and house?

I expect it'll be a replay of the era before Thatcher - taxes will skyrocket, the wealth will flee the country, they'll wallow in extremely high unemployment and civil unrest (Punk was a reaction by teens for the hopelessness of their future - no jobs, mostly, now throw in idle Muslim youth and the dregs of the African continent), and it'll take a Thatcher yet again to clean it up and fix it all after a decade of decay and stagnation and Liberal folly and scandal. Just like their US counterparts, British Liberals are their own worst enemies, and will draw blood with each other before long and scandals will erupt as they all enact power plays and such. Tony Blair is partially to blame for this, for his weak leadership. The UK has'nt had a true leader since Thatcher.

Thatcher is villified, yet she fixed the problems and led the UK towards recovery, and they blamed her for everything under the sun while they enjoyed their new wealth. Incredible.

If Prince Charles or the Queen had even a hint of a spine they'd hang the lot of them from the Tower of London as traitors to the Crown...but then there is the long history of the Crown bleeding it's citizens...and colonies, cough, cough...to death through taxation.

Nothing new here. Just glad I did'nt go back. I love the UK, I loved living there, and would love to live there again, but the old UK, not the imposter that is the modern UK. There were still vestiges of culture and Empire when I was there, and it's all slowly been eroded away, in the name of Liberalism and political folly.


11 posted on 09/20/2006 3:58:22 AM PDT by ByDesign
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To: mewzilla

BTTT.


12 posted on 09/20/2006 5:28:17 AM PDT by mewzilla (Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. John Adams)
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