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Comment by crdoconnor | Hacker News Reader

>The government's plan involves cutting the top rate of income tax by 5 percentage points

>The main idea behind the change, which is now being discussed by parliament, is to make salaried work more attractive and woo some 40,000 people off welfare in the process. Not a bad plan for a country that faces labor shortages and growing pressure on its costly social safety net from an aging population.

This is a sales pitch for tax cuts on the rich, not an idea.

Somebody, somewhere made a campaign contribution and this is their reward.

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  and raising personal allowances so as to boost the salaries of the lowest earners by an average of 7 percent

So the plan is to cut the taxes of high-earners, as well as improving the tax-free allowance for everyone…

Without increasing other taxes, or reducing spending?

Where's the extra money coming from?

From creating jobs, taking people off welfare and making them pair their taxes, albeit reduced.

>Where's the extra money coming from?

Assuming that's true, by ramping up public borrowing (most likely), increased tax receipts from increased employment (less likely) or seigniorage (least likely).

Regarding the personal allowance increase, I'm sad that the article glossed over this. I was really impressed that it was a tax cut for both the top bracket and "everyone". I wonder how the Danes would react if it was only an increase to the allowance, without the top bracket cut?

Magical thinking.

> Somebody, somewhere made a campaign contribution

You are assuming that the chance of being elected to public office increases with the amount of money you can spend on trying. That's cute.

Edit: You aren't american. But still so cynical about politics :)

>You are assuming that the chance of being elected to public office increases with the amount of money you can spend on trying. That's cute.

Clearly politicians solicit campaign contributions just for the hell of it.

If Denmark is like Sweden (It has a very similar political system, as do all the Nordic countries) then donations usually aren't solicited by politicians but by parties. Individual politicians rarely campaign at all.

Obviously parties can be indebted to donors just like individual politicians - but the result at least superficially seems to be lot less shady dealings since buying something off a major party will take a lot more than buying an individual.

>Obviously parties can be indebted to donors just like individual politicians

Obviously. AND given that the proposal is obviously a hand out to the wealthy and it came at a political cost to the prime minister (in decreased popularity)...

I mean, you can put two and two together yourself right?

Strange on unpopular policies from large parties in our multi-party governing collisions are usually concessions to the smaller parties in exchange for parliamentary support. Not sure what's going on here though.

>Not sure what's going on here though.

That's cute.

Do politicians solicit campaign money in the UK? I thought it was a uniquely American issue. The cuteness usually lies in when Americans assume local problems are universal.

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