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  2. Economics
22 May 2012updated 26 Sep 2015 7:01pm

Moving the goalposts?

Tax cuts vs spending cuts

By Alex Hern

Very odd line from Matthew Sinclair’s response to Nick Pearce’s response to the Taxpayers’ Alliance’s report on cutting tax:

Nick Pearce fudges the point about the Scandinavian economies by citing tax revenue as a share of national income when, for a whole load of reasons, spending is a much more reliable variable in this instance.

Pearce’s response focused on taxes because that’s what the TPA’s report was about. Look, it even says tax on the front cover. Twice:

Of course, the Taxpayers’ Alliance are just as in favour of spending cuts as tax cuts, but for a whole load of reasons, they didn’t call their report Close the NHS (and 94 other ways of cutting £120bn from spending). The thing seems like a bit of a bait-and-switch.

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