Slash income tax and government spending to restore confidence

THE essential recommendations of the Bord Snip Nua report must be implemented. The €5bn in savings the report has targeted must be achieved. This is vital if we want to begin to restore our public finances to remain solvent as a country.

There are two fundamental fiscal tasks, in my view, which we must achieve in order to revive our dead economy and achieve prosperity again for our people.

Firstly, the left-of-centre wing of the media and of academia wants, at all costs, for us to avoid doing the thing that will truly get our economy on the real road to recovery again – namely, slashing income tax rates (for the most productive people in our economy) and other growth-inhibiting taxes. Slashing income tax rates leaves more money in people’s pockets and this, in turn, will give people more confidence to spend and invest. That ultimately will encourage the banks to loosen credit because they will see there is life in the economy again. The Government will have no choice but to do this ultimately because tax revenues will just continue to dry up under current fiscal strategy. The inane tax rises the Government has implemented have destroyed the economy. Consumer confidence is shot and the economy is dead. In summation...

1. Slash government spending (so that the State lives within its means), and

2. Slash income tax rates to reignite consumer and business activity and growth (this will in turn generate the tax revenue the Government needs to restore the public finances in addition to slashing government spending).

Trust in the pro-enterprise nature of the Irish people, and we will come through this.

John B Reid

Crannmor

Knapton Road

Dun Laoghaire

Co Dublin