ASI Budget Reaction features in The Guardian and The Herald
The Adam Smith Institute's Budget reaction has featured in The Guardian and Herald Scotland. From The Guardian:
Interestingly, the strongest opposition to the plan came from the free market thinktanks: the Adam Smith Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs. The CBI wasn’t all that keen either. Its director general, John Cridland, said the government was getting pretty close to setting an overtly political mandate for the Low Pay Commission. “That’s not something I welcome,” he added.
Both the ASI and the IEA would have preferred Osborne to tackle the low pay issue in a different way. They would have preferred deeper spending cuts to fund bigger reductions in taxes. And they would have liked a more radical reform of the tax system, with moves towards the harmonisation of income tax and national insurance. Raising the level at which employees start to pay NI towards the level of the income tax personal allowance would, they argue, do more to help the low paid than a compulsory increase in wages that the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates will cost 60,000 jobs.
To read our reaction in the Herald Scotland, click here.