If you were a dictator, what would YOU do?

[DominicJ]

Snail
Re: the Mathematics.
On current budgets, you could give every man, woman and child £5,500 per year, and every under 21 additional £5,000 per year instead of "free" healthcare, welfare, state pension and state education.

Or, you close the deficit to 0, and give everyone £3600 and leave the under 21 education top up un touched.

[biffvernon]

Reduce and then eliminate income tax, raising the money instead by taxes on consumption.

Increase sales taxes or duties on goods that are needlesly damaging to the environment.

Taxation can be used to raise government finance or to change people's behaviour. Trying to make a tax do both at the same time leads to difficulty.

[RenewableCandy]

If you had a citizens' income, you could abolish the min wage altogether. "Work" would take on a whole different meaning. People would only ever do it if they wanted to, or if the pay was good enough. It would, for example, become much less risky and stressful to start one's own business, or to work part-time, or to take on individual "projects" when older. I'm not a sociologizt but the changes in attitudes would be interesting, and almost certainly for the better.

[DominicJ]

Yep
Not to mention, no benefit loss to put people off working.
£4 an hour isnt bad if you keep every penny on top of your CW

[SleeperService]

Take gas, electricity, phone, water (and sewerage) and refuse into public ownership run on a not for profit basis. They're too important to put at the whim of the market and vested interests.

Pull government out of areas that it shouldn't be in such as running sporting events, public transport, thought police

I'm confused!! Or perhaps you are You want to take public transportation out of the hands of the government but give all the utilities. gas ,electricity etc. to the government. Do you really want all those services run as badly as the bus company?

So am I once I reread it. Sorry

Utilities would be in a mutual company owned by the customers, not the government. Imagine a Coop for services.

Public transport belonged in the same group as the utilities but I did some very sloppy revising. Sorry (again)

[RenewableCandy]

...Utilities would be in a mutual company owned by the customers, not the government. Imagine a Coop for services.

Your wish is my command !

[biffvernon]

May as well mutualise the banking system too while you're at it.

Schaazzaam

[vtsnowedin]

Take gas, electricity, phone, water (and sewerage) and refuse into public ownership run on a not for profit basis. They're too important to put at the whim of the market and vested interests.

Pull government out of areas that it shouldn't be in such as running sporting events, public transport, thought police

I'm confused!! Or perhaps you are You want to take public transportation out of the hands of the government but give all the utilities. gas ,electricity etc. to the government. Do you really want all those services run as badly as the bus company?

So am I once I reread it. Sorry
_
Utilities would be in a mutual company owned by the customers, not the government. Imagine a Coop for services.

Public transport belonged in the same group as the utilities but I did some very sloppy revising. Sorry (again)

Think. Nothing. Of it. It happens to all of us from time especially when we are off our game for whatever reason.
Edited to clear up the mess I made trying to post from my smart phone.
_

[cubes]

End unemployment benefits after 6 months - if you want food and shelter after that they'll be 'family hostels' with private sleeping areas but everything else shared.

Simplify the tax system by re-writing it from the ground up to be simpler with far less loopholes. Decent level of income-tax (NI merged) free income allowed (£10-15k) index linked. Single rate of tax above this.

No investment in new roads. Encourage local rail schemes - reduced planning approval required esp. on now-closed routes.

No VAT on bicycles - greater investment in encouraging cycling with more decent cycle paths and roads being closed to cars and lorries. Cycle training to be compulsory in schools.

Make Britain a republic, with a directly elected figurehead-type president - with powers similar the ones the queen can actually use without being told to, basically dissolving parliament.

Make a bank = retail banking. Allowed to have small investment arms but these must be a separate legal entity with no guarantees from parent company and no retail banking money involved (bank can invest a small amount of it's profit however).

Introduce a land-tax, not set particularly high but enough to encourage more landowners to sell or use their land.

Give Britain a written constitution, imo if it's not on paper it doesn't exist.

Introduce a method for constituents to recall their MPs set at a level that isn't easy to achieve but easy enough for it to happen when the MP really messes up.

Give up US reliance on nuclear weapons even if it means grovelling to the French to help us build our own.

Higher defence budget - if we really want to make the world a better place, aid and words only go so far. Ability to declare war limited by the new constitution though.

Houses to be build to higher standards of both quality, insulation (passivhaus if it's economically feasible) and solar thermal to be mandatory on new-build.

Complete reform of private and state pension system. Both are unaffordable in their present form. No idea what the new system would be though.

Limit NHS funding, no matter how much money you throw at it, it'll never be enough to keep everyone happy. Best to keep people healthy to start with imo, with exercise and good eating habits encouraged from an early age - and the end of 'hospital food'!

Tax all packaging by weight, £1 per kg for recyclable, £10 per kg for everything else (both pro-rata)

Water, electricity distribution and gas distribution would be taken away from the existing owners and put into non-profit companies answerable to a board of directors directly elected by everyone. The production and sale of gas and electricity would still be in private hands though.

National service for 18-20 year olds (you don't go to uni until 20) - military service by volunteers only though, would be other forms of voluntary/community work.

Give cubes a tax-free income of £100billion per year. Damn, I thought I could get that past without anyone noticing!

[the_lyniezian]

Yep
Not to mention, no benefit loss to put people off working.
£4 an hour isnt bad if you keep every penny on top of your CW

Never quite got that. I understand people might be less inclined to go into work if, say it means spending less time with their families or suchlike, and the minimum wage isn't really much better than whatthey'd get in benefits anyway, so it might not seem worth it- is that it?

[RenewableCandy]

The point about the Citizens' Wage is that you know what you're going to get, there's no "benefits trap", and it's practically impossible to cheat.

[the_lyniezian]

Snail
Re: the Mathematics.
On current budgets, you could give every man, woman and child £5,500 per year, and every under 21 additional £5,000 per year instead of "free" healthcare, welfare, state pension and state education.

Or, you close the deficit to 0, and give everyone £3600 and leave the under 21 education top up un touched.

Why cut those in particular? If youre absolute ruler of the country, you can probably do far more than the current system allows for. I'm sure you can probably eliminate a lot of waste for starters (and maintain that certain civil servants will be losing their jobs if not get sent to the labour camps if they don't) or find something else much more worthwhile to cut.

[EDIT: Of course you don't need welfare or state pensions in this system, and probably don't need exemptions from NHS charges either. £5,500 is as far as I know more than Jobseekers Allowance at least.]

[the_lyniezian]

Frankly if you're going to have some sort of Citizen's Income, I'd think it better to have some sort of incentive to be a productive member of society- you at least find some job or do some sort of voluntary work for a few hours per week, unless you're in full-time education or are exempt on medical grounds. Otherwise, more welfare dependency.

(I know from experience, since I'm on the dole. But for the threat of sanctions, I'd not make any effort.)

[EDIT: Of course, no signing-on rigmarole means you can cut staffing levels at the Jobcentres... and you can cut bureaucracy from all the other means-testing and conditions you don't have to have.]

[the_lyniezian]

If you had a citizens' income, you could abolish the min wage altogether. "Work" would take on a whole different meaning. People would only ever do it if they wanted to, or if the pay was good enough. It would, for example, become much less risky and stressful to start one's own business, or to work part-time, or to take on individual "projects" when older. I'm not a sociologizt but the changes in attitudes would be interesting, and almost certainly for the better.

The real advantage to this would most likely be that businesses would be more able to afford to create jobs at the basic/menial level, or keep existing jobs.

[DominicJ]

Never quite got that. I understand people might be less inclined to go into work if, say it means spending less time with their families or suchlike, and the minimum wage isn't really much better than whatthey'd get in benefits anyway, so it might not seem worth it- is that it?

Thats probably it in some cases, the financial case I find easier to swallow, it people who earn £100, and then lose £97 in benefits. So they work 37.5 hours, for £3.

Why cut those in particular?

The four biggest items of expenditure are Healthcare, Pensions, Welfare and Education, at £120bn, £120bn, £102bn and £84bn
Next is defence at £43bn, and Interest, at £42bn

You cant NOT cut those. Anyone who claims they can save the economy by binning trident is a fool or a liar.

"Waste" would be self eliminating, because people would be free to choose which ever provider offered them the best deal. If managers arent a net gain for a hospital, its prices will go up, patients will choose to go elsewhere and the hospital will either change, or go bankrupt, be bought up and changed.

You cant disperse power from the centre.

and probably don't need exemptions from NHS charges either

There wouldnt be an NHS to be exempt from....

Frankly if you're going to have some sort of Citizen's Income, I'd think it better to have some sort of incentive to be a productive member of society

But there is.
The citizens wage is £106.99 per week.
The citizens wage and a 35hr a week job paying £4 per hour is £246.99 per week.

The real advantage to this would most likely be that businesses would be more able to afford to create jobs at the basic/menial level, or keep existing jobs.

And people wouldnt be penalised for making a small contribution to society.
The current system is bonkers, those who cant contribute a lot are denied the chance to contribute AT ALL and exist entirely as parasites.