Energy And Reality.

From: John Armstrong, Main Street, Stillington, North Yorkshire. Yorks Post.
YOU reported that Nick Clegg urged the Chancellor to face up to “economic reality” and raise taxes (Yorkshire Post, September 18).
I find Clegg’s doublespeak intensely frustrating. Workers in Yorkshire paying the basic rate of tax are already paying (counting National Insurance) a third of their wage to the taxman. For higher rate payers, it’s half. For our businesses  that do make a profit, almost a quarter goes to the Exchequer.
But it doesn’t end there – 20 per cent of most of the price of many of our purchases is taxed and for every £50 of petrol I put in my car, £30 goes to Nick. Is he trying to tell me (with a straight face) that more taxation is the solution?
It is Clegg, not the Chancellor, that needs to face up to “economic reality”. High taxation is already directly strangling economic growth by taking money out of workers’ pockets. If the state cannot balance its books on its already bloated take, it needs to curb its expenditure. Unpopular? Maybe.
Economic realist, Mr Armstrong? - Oh, yes.