Budget Day, a pre-emptive slow hand clap

Well. it's budget day. Expect austerity. More of it. Expect the projection of heavily gendered moralising into the economic sphere by much agonising about 'working families' to the exclusion of lone parents. Expect to have to pay more for a pint or a packet of fags. And expect the Labour front bench to be just a tiny bit better than the Tories in a way that is more disappointing than reassuring.

What would social democratic reforms of a sort that make a difference and throw open debate look like? A favourite of mine is the land value tax. As a replacement for the Council Tax, it would put more money into the vast majority of peoples' pockets and, via its effect on land prices, put downward pressure on housing prices. Which can't be bad.

Also, increase benefits, tax the rich, and so forth.

 Edited to add (14:29): So I was wrong about the beer. But I find myself in pleasing agreement with Stella Creasy:

So people who can afford to save will do well, as those struggling to make ends meet will pay for it … #smartspenders #twonations #budget14
— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) March 19, 2014

Nine million adults, by the way, have no savings. And, given that growth is predicted to fall in 2017/8, one might on tediously orthodox economic grounds wonder about the wisdom of massively incentivising savings in the manner that Gideon has done. Unless, of course, that wisdom is exercised in the cause of the already rich, with scant regard for anyone else. Perish the thought.

Inheritance tax waived for emergency workers killed in the line of duty? Populist nonsense. What, after all, is the rationale of not including others killed at work? It is tragic when a paramedic is killed (not that paramedics tend to leave vast amounts of wealth, but anyway). Is it less tragic when a train driver gets killed in a crash or a shop worker in a robbery? And what does this have to do with unearned wealth anyway? I note, by the way, that those killed by the police, a considerably bigger number than police officers killed in the line of duty, remain susceptible to inheritance tax. Not that the poor black people disproportionately represented in this group have much to leave.

The real question, of course, is how much of this crap Miliband and Balls plan to reverse.