Timid Budget delivers worst of both worlds

DEREK Mackay has pulled off a remarkable double. His muchtrailed Budget was a timid affair whose proceeds will go nowhere near to paying for the goodies he promised.

And he has incurred searing criticism from the renowned economist Arthur Laffer — of whose famous ‘curve’ Mackay, as Finance Minister last year, admitted he had not heard.

Laffer’s view is that ‘The Scottish Government needs to understand that you cannot distribute more than you can produce. These sorts of measures… discourage growth…. Increased taxation does nothing to boost the economy’.

Of course taxation is a vital part of a Finance Minister’s armoury. But introducing different (higher) tax rates within the same polity (the UK) merely encourages the mobile to take their businesses and jobs to the lower tax jurisdiction and discourages skilled and entrepreneurial people from moving to Scotland to fill vacancies and generate new businesses.

Mr Mackay has performed the amazing feat of giving us the worst of both worlds.

Jill StephenSon, edinburgh.

Eyes open at last

THE Scottish Budget would suggest that the SNP is beginning to emerge reluctantly from fantasy politics and face reality and actually accept that reckless spending on goodies to gain votes does, eventually, have a price.

Despite the worse than grim economic growth forecast and a new £2billion black hole, it would seem the SNP now sees that prestige trips to the US and China, armies of special advisers, bridge tolls abolition and other handouts if not bribes — actually have to be paid for. By us, the taxpayers.

Is there a single achievement that could not have been obtained by the system that Holyrood replaced?

Layer upon layer of extra government and representation and armies of jobs for the boys and associated hangers-on, have done nothing whatsoever to better our lives.

AlexAnder McKAy, edinburgh.

Punishing high earners

THE most sickening aspect of the Scottish Budget is SNP supporters and even elected members revelling in people paying more tax because they are presumed to be Tories.

Transport Minister Humza Yousaf actually joked about Tories leaving the country as a result of higher taxes.

So in Mr Yousaf’s world, all highearners are Tories and Scotland would be better off without them?

Falling over himself to praise Derek Mackay’s Budget, Mr Yousaf seems to be pushing himself for promotion.

But is a politician whose worldview is ‘rich equals Tories/ Tories equals bad’ suitable for anything more significant than a school debating society? JeAn cAMpbell, paisley, renfrewshire. WESTERN Isles MP Angus MacNeil appears to be endorsing the view from the more rabid end of the SNP that the loss of highearners from Scotland would be no bad thing.

One aspect we call all agree on from the Budget is that a very few people pay an awful lot of the tax in Scotland.

Merryn Somerset-Webb (Mail) puts the figure at 15 per cent of the population pay 50 per cent of the tax.

No matter your political persuasion, losing high earners in any country is bad news for public finances.

The tax burden cannot be shouldered by fewer and fewer people.

Andrew hunter, Aberdeen. NOW everyone on over £33,000 is rich, according to the SNP. Meanwhile, everyone on under £24,000 will be going crazy with the £20 extra a year they are getting.

The public are not fooled by any of this and they are not fooled by Derek Mackay’s fiddling with the lower tax bands — he’s broken his party’s commitment to freeze the basic rate of income tax.

briAn GibSon, Glasgow.

Depose Queen Nicola

WHY is the SNP increasing its ‘external relations’ spending in the Budget by £3.5million to £17.3million a year when Holyrood has an exclusively domestic remit?

Are we paying for Nicola Sturgeon to strut around Europe and the US in the guise of the Queen of Scots, masquerading as the head of a sovereign state? Get over yourself, Nicola.

MArtin redfern, edinburgh.

Desperate for change

AFTER the SNP Budget, we should now look around for alternative leadership.

Labour does not promise any better, with policies using fairness as an excuse for unaffordable expenditure. In Scotland, its team has difficulty finding and keeping a leader.

The Lib Dems have Sir Vince and Willie Rennie to encourage their disillusioned fans, but they cannot form a government.

Then there is Ruth Davidson, positive in outlook and ideas, who continues to offer a plausible alternative to the benighted Nicola Sturgeon.

The difficulty is that in Westminster, Theresa May’s coat remains on a shoogly peg, so the Tory brand seems vested in Ruth, certainly here in Scotland. We need change.

d. duncAn, Aberdeen.

Terrible timing

INTEREST rates are up, inflation is up, council tax is about to go up, Scottish economic growth lags behind the rest of the UK — and yet Nicola Sturgeon thinks the ‘time is right’ for tax rises?

dAnny bolAnd, Glasgow.

Chasing out wealth

THE difference between what a worker in Scotland is allowed to take home after tax and what the equivalent worker in England gets is going to get bigger.

That matters because we keep hearing that Scotland needs more people.

These extra people cannot all be seasonal agricultural workers. We need the brightest and best to generate wealth. SNP policy will chase, not attract, these people.

pAul MASon, edinburgh.