Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Clegg vs the IFS: reductio ad absurdum

Via Sunder Katwala, I see that Nick Clegg has reprised one of his greatest moronisms.

Back in June, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that George Osborne’s Budget would hit the poorest hardest. Clegg responded by saying that the IFS analysis didn’t take into account the effects of unspecified future policies that the government might introduce. This met with general ridicule.

Undaunted, Clegg has reacted in the same way to the latest IFS report:

It doesn’t cover what we’re going to do in future Budgets to build on the steps that we included in this Budget to make the tax system fairer.

Let me explain, in language that Clegg can understand, why this criticism is wrong.

It doesn’t cover what the IFS is going to do in future Budget analyses to build on the steps that it included in this Budget analysis to assess whether the government is making the tax system fairer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Indeed. How dare the IFS not include the provisions of the 2013 budget in its projections!

Everyone knows that that's when the coalition will be handing out moonpies to every child.