Ronald Reagan famously proclaimed that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” With the ‘most terrifying’ words already attributed, the pledge of a commission to transform the economy through increased intervention and higher taxes will simply have to be chalked up to misguidance and bad policy.
The IPPR’s Commission on Economic Justice, released this week, puts forward 73 recommendations for ‘better and more sustainable growth’. Yet a look through the proposals suggests that the commissions members – including the Archbishop of Canterbury and trade union reps – are more interested in tackling perceived issues around inequality than they are at kick-starting the economy and improving living standards. Unsurprisingly, their key proposals to address the former stand in direct opposition to the latter.
Their call to immediately increase the minimum wage to the Real Living Wage, for example, further politicises wage setting policy, which leads to rash decision-making that businesses may not be ready to handle.
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