cockfighting fly pens
SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL COMMENT: A basket case of tax and spend profligacy, this woeful SNP Budget is a sure-fire blueprint for failure Click here to visit the Scotland home page for the latest news and sport By SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL COMMENT Published: 16:29 EST, 4 December 2024 | Updated: 17:57 EST, 4 December 2024 e-mail 1 View comments It promised the earth but Shona Robison’s threadbare Budget delivered nothing of substance. Boosting the NHS and the economy – and wiping out child poverty – were supposedly the central objectives. Yet when the details were outlined, such as they were, it was more of a damp squib than a Christmas cracker. The iniquitous cross-Border tax gap remains – despite an increase in the amount that can be earned before the basic rate of income tax applies. Scots earning more than £30,318 will still be paying more income tax than someone on the same salary in England, while those who earn less than that will be a meagre 50p a week better off. An opportunity to end this damaging disparity was missed, meaning that more businesses and young professionals will give Scotland a wide berth. Tens of thousands of people will be dragged into paying higher taxes after the higher, advanced and top-rate thresholds were frozen at their current levels. Astonishingly, the stratospheric benefits bill is set to soar by £800million, bringing the total ploughed into devolved benefits to nearly £7billion a year. It makes a mockery of SNP boasts about growing the economy – something that can never be achieved by ramping up handouts. Shona Robison's Budget betrays a monumental misunderstanding of basic economic principles Yet the additional revenue raised by income tax policies is forecast to be only around £50million in 2025-26. The gain simply isn’t worth the pain for middle-class Scots who are desperate for some respite from unrelenting SNP tax-grabs. Adding insult to injury are the eye-watering sums set to be spent on public sector pay hikes – equating to an inflation-busting 9 per cent over three years. On council tax, there was an appalling fudge, with the Finance Secretary saying only that the SNP government would ‘engage closely’ with local authorities. She asserted that there was ‘no reason for big increases’ but her failure to continue the freeze is a green light for town halls to hit householders with swingeing hikes of up to 17 per cent. Ms Robison’s Budget also betrays a monumental misunderstanding of basic economic principles – no surprise from a party that was in league with the Marxist Greens until earlier this year. Now it has to build bridges with its political opponents to secure approval for its spending plans, and failure to do so could trigger an election. The stakes are high but the SNP has served up a jumble of reheated pledges and wish-list proposals with zero credibility. Chief among them is the pledge to eliminate the two-child benefit cap – which is nothing more than the stuff of fantasy. It was framed in the vaguest of terms and depends on Westminster ‘co-operation’. The Budget documents state that the UK Government ‘should not be the barrier to us [the SNP] successfully offsetting [the cap] in Scotland’. Many strings are attached to this commitment, which smacks of the SNP getting in early excuses for failing to live up to it – resorting to its time-worn tactic of trying to shift the blame to Westminster. Why Labour should help to undermine a policy that it supports, however grudgingly, is anyone’s guess – but then this was not a Budget rooted in reality. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said it would cost up to £300million a year to mitigate the impact of the cap, and ‘would likely require cuts to some other areas of spending’ – or tax rises. It concludes that there is ‘little [in the Budget] by way of concrete proposals or sense of what destination the Scottish Government is aiming for’. Cuts to cash for housing have been reversed in a humiliating U-turn – but few voters will give the SNP any credit merely for rectifying its own mistakes. Click here to visit the Scotland home page for the latest news and sport Advertisement There was only minimal support for hard-pressed publicans, and the business rates relief offered will not be enough to prevent ‘massive’ closures and job losses, according to the Scottish Licensed Trade Association. Some 2,600 Scottish hospitality businesses will not be eligible for relief, which the sector warns will ‘seriously threaten their ability to support jobs’. In its damning analysis, the Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde warned there was no plan to fully fund the hike in employers’ NationaI Insurance contributions for public sector bodies. It has been left asking ‘whether any lessons have been learned from going into a new year without fully setting aside budget cover for... known costs’. After the SNP’s catastrophic result in July’s general election, it’s little wonder that independence isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Budget – but it is a deeply telling omission. By contrast, growth is cited dozens of times – although the SNP plainly has no idea how to kick-start the moribund economy. On the NHS, Ms Robison’s promise that by March 2026 no one will wait longer than 12 months for a new outpatient appointment, inpatient treatment or day-case treatment is a retread of a previous commitment made in 2022. Back then, the SNP government said its waiting time pledge would be in place by September this year, but it didn’t materialise – so why should anyone believe patients won’t be let down again? This sleight of hand, clumsy as it was, is entirely typical of a party that has long prized shameless spin over tangible delivery. Earlier this week, an official report by the public spending watchdog found ‘fundamental change’ was needed in the NHS, and it warned some services may have to be cut. Yet there is nothing in the Budget to indicate that the SNP has anything resembling a reform plan. Instead it will continue to channel more cash into a cherished institution that has been badly mismanaged by the Nationalists for nearly 20 years. Proposals for a real-terms cut to alcohol and drug harm prevention funding make no sense, given the SNP’s ‘national mission’ to tackle Scotland’s drug death toll – the highest in Europe . There is very little that can be said to be remotely ‘progressive’ about this dog’s breakfast of a Budget. It is a familiar blend of chicanery and intellectual bankruptcy, with grandstanding and costly virtue-signalling thrown in for good measure. Ms Robison now faces a period of horse-trading and haggling in order to pass the Budget, relying on help from rivals her party has demonised for years. Surrounded by enemies , the supplicant SNP is determined to rebuild bridges it destroyed long ago for the sake of its own political survival. The SNP’s disgraceful hotchpotch of recycled pledges and fag-packet policymaking is further proof that it has been in power for far too long. Any party backing it in its current form would be facilitating a Budget underpinned by nothing more than wishful thinking and hollow rhetoric. It was presented as an agenda for hope – but the truth is that it is a blueprint for failure that will take Scotland further down the road to economic ruin. NHS SNP Share or comment on this article: SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL COMMENT: A basket case of tax and spend profligacy, this woeful SNP Budget is a sure-fire blueprint for failure e-mail Add comment
Elon Musk entertains idea of buying MSNBC
Chuck Woolery, smooth-talking game show host of ‘Love Connection’ and ‘Scrabble,’ dies at 83Asking Eric: Friend accepts a dinner invitation then cancels when there’s opportunity for family time
United, Apple rolling out new way to track lost luggage with AirTagsAtlassian's Options: A Look at What the Big Money is Thinking
Patrick Stewart's first act as Rangers chief executive could be to sack Philippe ClementBy Bradley Schnure Like many people, I’ve been following news of the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson with great interest. Some people on social media have tried to glorify the alleged shooter, calling him a hero. Others have attempted to justify the crime, saying the insurance CEO deserved payback for his company killing countless customers through denied claims for coverage. As a former long-time employee of the New Jersey Legislature, I believe targeting anyone in an extrajudicial way is wrong, regardless of how despicable we may think them to be. In a nation of laws, we cannot begin to believe that it’s appropriate to seek our own justice from the barrel of a gun. I believe it’s nothing less than tragic that our system of health care in this country is so broken that so many people seem to think otherwise. Despite recent events, I believe we have reason to be hopeful, but I fully understand the bitterness that got us here. That’s because I’m also a 48-year-old Stage IV lung cancer patient with a folder full of my own denial letters to show for it. Over the past several years, I’ve been denied care many times, including a scan requested by a doctor that likely would have caught my cancer at an earlier stage before it spread. I have written on social media about my experience with eviCore , a third-party service provider that many insurers use to review and increasingly deny pre-authorization requests from doctors. In my case, I visited a string of specialists over close to a year to try to understand the source of a persistent cough. In the summer of 2022, my ENT came frustratingly close to finding my lung cancer when it was still curable. He requested a simple, relatively inexpensive CT scan that eviCore promptly denied. He challenged the denial and provided his clinical notes along with an additional explanation detailing the need, only to be denied a second time. Ultimately, I gave up trying to get that scan approved. I didn’t realize how serious those denials would prove to be until a full year later. In July of 2023, my health quickly deteriorated over several days. My wife rushed me to the emergency room as I gasped for breath. Thankfully, CT scans in the emergency room don’t require pre-authorization. As a result of that scan, I quickly learned from a pair of attentive ER doctors that I had “metastatic lung disease.” After a few more tests over several days, I was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, which resulted in my unexpected retirement from the Legislature. The saddest moment of my life, by far, was lying in a hospital bed and telling my young children that I loved them and might not have long to live. It was heartbreaking to see the tears in their eyes as they tried to understand that their dad might die. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone. Sadly, too many other people have similar stories, as recently reported by ProPublica . How many of those horror stories could have been prevented if doctors didn’t have to beg insurance companies for permission to diagnose and treat their own patients? It’s a simple question that deserves an answer. Here in New Jersey, Senator Jon Bramnick (R-21) and Senate President Nick Scutari (D-22) have proposed a solution. They sponsor a bipartisan bill (S-2257) that would prohibit pre-authorization requirements for medical tests, procedures, and prescription drugs that are covered under people’s plans. I don’t know if that’s a complete solution to a very complex problem, but it would amount to a significant step forward for both patients and their doctors. Every three months, I need to get a CT scan of my body and MRI of my brain to track the progression of my disease. And just about every three months, I get a letter from eviCore denying one scan or the other. My cancer center has teams of administrators who do nothing but appeal denials on behalf of their patients, including me. The same is true for just about every doctor’s office and hospital across the country. Driven by the massive cost of managing insurance pre-authorizations for standard services, it’s no wonder the United States has the highest cost for medical administration in the world, nearly three times more than anyone else. If any good might come from the death of Brian Thompson, I hope it’s that our nation finally begins a long-overdue discussion about solving this problem. There are lots of lurking pitfalls to be sure, including the challenge of reducing the potential for lawsuits that drives many doctors to practice defensive medicine by ordering extra tests that insurers say are unnecessary. We also need to be careful not to sacrifice the parts of the system that are working well today, namely the research and development of new drugs and therapies. I have ALK-positive lung cancer, which is an oncogenic cancer that is most common in younger non-smokers. It’s vastly different from other, more common types of lung cancer, which is why standard lung cancer treatments usually fail quickly. In fact, just 15 years ago, I likely would have died within a few weeks of my diagnosis. That’s how fast practical research has advanced in recent years. Since the pandemic, doctors are reporting a spike in many rare cancers, such as mine, among people of all ages. Like many other people with a variety of diseases, I’m dependent on a recently developed medication that, unfortunately, won’t be effective in treating me forever. And like many others, the eventual length of my life will depend on the continued willingness of profit-seeking businesses to continue their massive investment in the significant costs associated with research, development, and clinical trials. For me, and millions of others, health care today is a race against the clock. Celebrating a killer won’t extend my life or anyone else’s, but enacting common-sense legislative reforms almost certainly will. The author is the former Communications Director for the New Jersey Senate Republican Office. He served the Legislature for more than 22 years prior to his diagnosis with Stage IV ALK-positive lung cancer. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com . Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion . Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook .