Fiscal discipline is a good thing. But fiscal health can be maintained even better by levying higher taxes on the wealthy. Poor people should bear the entire burden of deductions, It’s not fair at all.
In the era of neo-liberal economic policies, governments around the world have followed the policy of spending less. Such a rule of fiscal discipline has been implemented in the world that governments had to reduce spending on essential public services. And this did not happen only in developing countries. But developed countries also have a similar story. But this trend has had dangerous consequences. Now a recent study has revealed that the government policy of reducing spending on public services and welfare schemes in Britain has proved to be fatal. In recent years, more than three lakh 30 thousand people have lost their lives due to this policy. Especially in the conditions created after the economic recession of 2008, the policy of austerity was implemented in Britain. The researchers studied the results of this policy between 2012 and 2019. This revealed that thousands of people died during this period due to lack of income, poor health, lack of nutritious food, lack of proper housing, and social isolation. The study report is published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
The study report comes at a time when the current Conservative government led by Liz Truss has indicated further cuts in public spending. Under this, there is also an intention to cut down the facilities available to people of working age, which will affect lakhs of people. Several institutions were involved in the study, led by the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow Center for Population Health. The study concluded that there is an urgent need to roll back the low-spending policies. At the same time, such policies should be implemented, so that the weaker sections of the society can be protected. Researchers say the British government should learn from the devastating effects of drastic cuts to social security. The chances that the British government will actually do this are slim. However, this lesson is for the whole world including India. Fiscal discipline is a good thing. But fiscal health can be maintained even better by levying higher taxes on the wealthy. Poor people should bear the entire burden of deductions, it is not right at all.
