SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
austerity
'Austerity Is Labour's Choice': Outrage as Starmer Cuts Winter Fuel Allowance
"Cutting winter fuel allowance is not a tough choice," Jeremy Corbyn said. "It's the wrong choice—and we will not be fooled by ministers' attempts to feign regret over cruel decisions they don't have to take."
Sep 11, 2024
Progressive critics and lawmakers are expressing outrage after the U.K. Parliament on Tuesday voted to cut a winter fuel allowance for millions of Britons, calling the move by the ruling Labour Party, which took power in July, a continuation of the Conservative Party's austerity policies.
The measure turns the allowance, which provides £200 to £300 ($262 to $293) per year to senior citizens for heating bills, into a means-tested program in which only the poorest will qualify. It's expected to reduce the number of people receiving the winter payment from 11.4 million last year to 1.5 million this year. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it a "tough choice" that was necessary because of the poor state of the British treasury.
A vote to overturn the cut lost 348 to 228 on Tuesday after Labour successfully whipped enough its members of Parliament into supporting the cut. Fifty two Labour MPs abstained, at least 20 of whom had expressed opposition to the plan, and one voted in opposition.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who now represents voters as an independent, condemned Starmer's move.
"Cutting winter fuel allowance is not a tough choice," Corbyn wrote on social media. "It's the wrong choice—and we will not be fooled by ministers' attempts to feign regret over cruel decisions they don't have to take."
"Did he get permission from the Tories to reuse their trademark slogans?" he asked of Starmer in an a Tuesday op-ed in Tribune.
Under the headline, "Austerity Is Labour's Choice," Corybn railed against Starmer and his allies for falling back on the kind of neoliberalism that has dominated the U.K. for decades. He wrote:
It is astonishing to hear government ministers try to pull the wool over the public's eyes. The government knows that there is a range of choices available to them. They could introduce wealth taxes to raise upwards of £10 billion. They could stop wasting public money on private contracts. They could launch a fundamental redistribution of power by bringing water and energy into full public ownership. Instead, they have opted to take resources away from people who were promised things would change. There is plenty of money, it’s just in the wrong hands.
The winter fuel payment was introduced as an unconditional cash transfer in 1997 under then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. Some economists have argued that U.K. pensioners are in better position today than than were then, and thus the payment no longer makes sense; others have noted that in real terms, the payment is far lower than it used to be, due to inflation, and thus had become a relatively insignificant benefit anyway.
However, progressives have called the cuts, which were first proposed after Labour took office and weren't mentioned during the election campaign, far too drastic, given the roughly 10 million people they'll effect. Meanwhile, Corbyn and others have argued that Labour's move marks a loss for universalism and could auger more cuts to come:
A universal system of welfare reduces the stigma attached to those who rely on it, and removes barriers for those who find it difficult to apply (both are reasons why the take-up of means-tested payments is so low). What next for means testing? The state pension? The NHS [National Health Service]?
Some commentators have objected to rich pensioners receiving benefits such as the fuel allowance. Progressives have responded that the money should simply be clawed back through higher tax rates on the wealthy.
"In my view the government should be looking to raise revenues from the wealthiest in society, not working class pensioners," Jon Trickett, the only Labour MP to vote to nix to the cut, said in a statement issued on social media.
Universal programs make it easier to reach all those who need help, progressives argue. The new winter fuel payment will be set up so that only those who receive a Pension Credit or other similar government benefit will be eligible for it. But only 63% of pensioners who qualify for the credit actually receive it, government statistics show. The government has announced a campaign to try to increase uptake of the credit.
Trickett said that he feared it would lead more senior citizens to fall into poverty during what he predicted would be an "extremely difficult" winter for his constituents in West Yorkshire. "After years of obscene profiteering by energy companies, they are hiking bills yet again," he wrote.
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said the cut would save the treasury £1.4 billion ($1.8 billion) this year. She argues that the Conservatives, who held power from 2010 until July, initially as part of a coalition, left the national finances in a dire state and Labour must fill a £22 billion ($28.7 billion) budgetary "black hole."
Labour hasn't released an official impact assessment of the winter payment measure. Reeves, like Starmer, has said she didn't want to make the cut, but two weeks ago a video clip of her proposing to cut the allowance as an opposition MP in 2014.
Rachel Reeves has repeatedly said she didn't want to cut the universal winter fuel allowance for pensioners but it was a tough decision forced on her because of the financial black hole left by the last govt
Here's Reeves 10 years ago: pic.twitter.com/1BAIL4racv
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) August 28, 2024
Reeves and Starmer have long tried to establish their fiscal prudence and distance themselves from purportedly free-spending progressives in their party. A progressive commentator on Novara Mediacalled their winter allowance cut an "incredible political fumble."
Keep ReadingShow Less
With Attention on Presidential Contest, GOP Goes on Austerity Rampage
One leading Democrat warned Republicans' spending proposals would "demolish public education" and "let corporate price gouging run rampant."
Jul 06, 2024
With much of the public's attention on the looming presidential election and high-stakes jockeying over who will take on Donald Trump in November, congressional Republicans in recent weeks have provided a stark look at their plans for federal spending should their party win back control of the presidency and the Senate.
The appropriations process for Fiscal Year 2025, which begins in October, is currently underway, with congressional committees engaging in government funding debates that are likely to continue beyond the November elections.
In keeping with their longstanding support for austerity for ordinary Americans, Republicans in the House and Senate have proposed steep cuts to a wide range of federal programs and agencies dealing with education, environmental protection, Social Security, election administration, national parks, nutrition assistance, antitrust enforcement, global health, and more—all while they pursue additional deficit-exploding tax giveaways for the rich.
"Some of the most concerning policy riders in the House Fiscal Year 2025 budget bills include mandates for new oil and gas leasing, prohibitions on the establishment of important protected areas for wildlife and natural ecosystems, and limitations that hinder federal agency ability to regulate polluters, putting water quality, air quality, and the climate at risk," the Surfrider Foundation noted in a statement earlier this week.
"Two of the key federal agencies that administer these programs are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), yet the House budget bills call for a 20% funding cut to the EPA, and a 12% funding cut to NOAA," the group added.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has been attempting to sound the alarm over the GOP's proposals, which she has warned would "demolish public education," endanger the health of women and children, gut mental health programs, "let corporate price gouging run rampant," and "expose children to dangerous products."
"I respectfully request that those on the other side of the aisle go back to the drawing board and come back with a new slate of workable subcommittee allocations across all 12 bills so that we can proceed with the important business of our 2025 appropriations work," DeLauro said during a markup hearing last month.
But Republican lawmakers have made clear that they are bent on pursuing steep cuts across the federal government, proposing spending levels well below the caps implemented by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, legislation that suspended the debt limit through January 1, 2025.
"House Republicans now intend to fund 2025 non-defense appropriations bills 6% below the 2024 level rather than provide the 1% increase" negotiated in 2023, noted David Reich, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Republicans in the Senate have also pushed for damaging cuts to non-military spending as the upper chamber prepares to hold markup hearings for its appropriations bills next week.
The Food Research & Action Center warned in a recent statement that legislation put forth by the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee would slash Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits by $30 billion over the next decade, jeopardizing critical food aid for tens of millions of people as hunger rises.
According to a May report by Feeding America, "the extra amount of money that people facing hunger said they need to have enough food" has "reached its highest point in the last 20 years."
Congressional Republicans' spending proposals for next fiscal year are in line with the draconian cuts pushed by Project 2025, a sweeping far-right agenda from which Trump—the presumptive GOP presidential nominee—is attempting to distance himself as horror grows over the initiative's vision for the country.
Project 2025's 922-page policy document calls for more punitive work requirements for SNAP recipients, massive cuts to Medicaid, the abolition of the Department of Education, the elimination of major clean energy programs, and the gutting of key Wall Street regulations.
"Despite Trump's claims to have 'nothing to do with' Project 2025, his administration and campaign personnel contributed to the project," The Intercept's Shawn Musgrave wrote Friday. "Former Trump administration officials wrote and edited massive chunks of the manifesto. One of its two primary editors, Paul Dans, who directs the Heritage Foundation's 2025 Presidential Transition Project, served as the White House liaison for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management during the Trump administration, among other positions."
"Rick Dearborn, who was briefly Trump's deputy chief of staff, wrote the White House chapter," Musgrave added. "Russ Vought, Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote the chapter on OMB and similar executive offices."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Progressive International Applauds Kenyans for Rising Up to Defeat IMF Austerity Bill
"They refuse to become another laboratory for neoliberalism—impoverished, beaten, or killed for the benefit of foreign corporations and their lackeys in the Kenyan government."
Jun 27, 2024
Progressive International on Thursday applauded the people of Kenya for taking to the streets en masse to defeat an International Monetary Fund-backed legislative package that would have hiked taxes on ordinary citizens as part of an effort to repay the government's powerful creditors.
"Pushed through at the behest of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the U.S. State Department, the bill would impose severe austerity measures and crippling taxes on Kenya's working people, who are already strained by Kenya's legacy of colonial underdevelopment," Progressive International said in a statement.
"The Progressive International stands firmly with the people of Kenya," the organization added. "They refuse to become another laboratory for neoliberalism—impoverished, beaten, or killed for the benefit of foreign corporations and their lackeys in the Kenyan government."
The Kenyan government's proposal, welcomed by the IMF as necessary for "debt sustainability," triggered massive youth-led protests in the nation's capital last week as thousands of citizens already immiserated by sky-high living costs flooded the streets to express outrage at the U.N. financial institution and their government for fueling the crisis.
The government crackdown was swift and deadly, with police using tear gas and live ammunition to beat back demonstrators calling for the withdrawal of the proposed bill and the resignation of President William Ruto, who took office in 2022.
Protesters achieved one of their objectives Wednesday when Ruto announced he would not sign the tax legislation, just days after he
ordered the country's military to help suppress the demonstrations.
"Listening keenly to the people of Kenya who have said loudly that they want nothing to do with this finance bill, I concede, and therefore, I will not sign the 2024 finance bill, and it shall subsequently be withdrawn," Ruto said in an address to the nation, which spends more than a quarter of its revenue on debt interest payments.
"The protesters we have been speaking to are still very angry, still very frustrated, they hold the president responsible for the deaths of those young Kenyans across the country."
As The Associated Pressreported, the withdrawn measure would have "raised taxes and fees on a range of daily items and services, from egg imports to bank transfers."
Kenya's public debt currently stands at $80 billion, around $3.5 billion of which is owed to the IMF—an explicit target of protesters' ire.
"Kenya is not IMF's lab rat," declared one demonstrator's sign.
The IMF said in a brief statement Wednesday that it was "deeply concerned" about the "tragic events" in Kenya and claimed its "main goal in supporting Kenya is to help it overcome the difficult economic challenges it faces and improve its economic prospects and the wellbeing of its people."
“Kenya is not IMF’s lab rat”
“I was in my healing era” pic.twitter.com/xLt2GG51hf
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) June 20, 2024
As Bloomberg's David Herbling wrote over the weekend, Ruto "has spent his first two years in office ramming through a slew of unpopular taxes—on everything from gasoline to wheelchair tires, bread to sanitary pads—thrilling international investors and the IMF, which has long urged Kenya to double its revenue collections to address its heavy debt burden."
Ruto's withdrawal of the tax-hike bill appeared unlikely to fully quell mass discontent over the president's IMF-aligned economic policies as protests continued on Thursday.
"The protests today are not as big as they were two days ago but they are still no less intense where they are happening," Al Jazeera's Zein Basravi reported from Nairobi. "If President Ruto, protesters say, had signed off on killing the tax bill 72 hours ago, a week ago, these protests might not be happening. But the decision he made, the concession, has come too little too late, and it has not gone far enough, and it has come at the cost of too many young lives."
"The protesters we have been speaking to are still very angry, still very frustrated, they hold the president responsible for the deaths of those young Kenyans across the country, 23 killed," Basravi added. "And they hold Parliament responsible for not standing stronger, standing firmer, against the president as they feel he was overreaching his position."
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said in a statement Wednesday that it is "crucial to recognize that the International Monetary Fund's austerity conditions have contributed to the economic hardships facing Kenyan citizens."
"These measures often disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations and can exacerbate social unrest," continued Omar, who chairs the U.S.-Africa Policy Working Group. "It is imperative that protesters remain peaceful as they continue to demand change. I stand in solidarity with the people in the wake of both state violence and IMF-imposed austerity measures."
"The Kenyan government must immediately disclose the location and condition of all those who have been taken into custody or disappeared, cease the use of excessive force, respect the right to peacefully protest, and continue to engage in meaningful dialogue to address the legitimate concerns of its citizens," Omar said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular