Hi ,

The budget at the end of October will be the new government's first. It'll be the first non-Conservative Party budget in over 14 years, and we need to make sure it's a budget for people, planet, and equality.

Since the election, the new Prime Minister and Chancellor have used a lot of their political capital to make the same argument: the UK needs to cut spending, and it's the previous government's fault. Certainly, there's a political motive here. Popular memory of the last Labour government was carefully defined by their opponents as being about selling the gold or leaving the no-money-left note. In the £22bn black hole, they sense a similar opportunity to brand the Conservatives as reckless with dire fiscal consequences.

But how bad will these spending cuts be? Reeves has already announced cuts to winter fuel payments and £5.5 billion of other spending cuts, while the IFS has calculated that sticking to the Conservative spending plans they inherited will force cuts equal to 0.8% of GDP by 2030. We know the damage caused by austerity all too well, from the massive cost to society to the 190,000 excess deaths the LSE found it had caused. The definition of madness in the UK is implementing austerity over and over again and expecting different results.

Economists are very clear that we need to invest, not cut. The only way out of our vicious cycle of cuts and decline is to ensure people have safe homes, accessible healthcare, the opportunities offered by education, strong communities, and a strong social safety net. Enormous amounts of money are available in the record-breaking profits, dividends, and wealth accumulation that the ultra-rich have built up over the last few decades. Cutting spending and not taxing the rich would be a choice made by the government – a disastrous one.

If you have ideas for how else to amplify the demand, please let us know in the weekly poll below!

How else would you spend €13 billion of back taxes? You said:

• "To improve access to free healthcare, at the point of delivery in Ireland, as I understand this is really needed."
  
  
• "Invest in the tax department and fraud teams then I would go after the richest 2% and the thieves who got rich during the COVID free-for-all."
  
  
• "I am very worried that local government will collapse, along with the vital services they are statutorily obliged to provide, unless their funding is increased and the way it is provided is reformed. So I'd give the money to local authorities in hope that education, social care, children's services, council houses, libraries, and so much more could survive and improve."
  
  
• "Massive programme of insulation and heat pump installation with solar panels and batteries - for public buildings, schools, hospitals, libraries, and for social housing."
  
  
• "Every citizen to receive an amount, (not 2,565 Euros) but enough so that recognition that taxes should benefit all becomes reinforced, or newly learned."

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