Burning our money

I'm a fan of the Burning our money blog, which has the following strapline:

They spend 43% of our income, yet fail to deliver decent services. They promise prosperity, yet tax and regulate our economy into stasis. They talk up social justice, yet consign millions to welfare dependency.

Enough is enough. We the peasants demand our high-spending, high-living, conflicted politicos mend their ways.

The scary figures quoted on Wat's blog make the expenditure figures of Morley Town Council look somewhat trivial. However, they have a habit of adding up...

In an earlier posting, I guesstimated the tax hit on Morleians to be round about the £1m mark. I was fairly close:

2000/01 £104,870
2001/02 £104,870
2002/03 £104,870
2003/04 £152,900
2004/05 £166,661
2005/06 £166,661
2006/07 £171,650
2007/08 £171,650

TOTAL £1,144,132

This is from the local authority precept which is applied as a supplement to the council tax at various ratios depending upon the house banding. (Blogged before: The default band D is £17.85).

The 2007/8 budget is for about £220k so the taxation isn't enough and reserves are being drawn on. This isn't sustainable, of course, in the longer term the Council will need to cut its cloth or dig deeper into our pockets.

Now £17.85 doesn't sound a lot, but £1.14 Million does, especially when a lot of it goes on double-taxation for things we supposedly already pay for, like local policing and keeping the parks tidy.

I'd question spending more than a Monkey's worth of Wonga on crockery as well!