Exactly.
I blogged on the issue of a higher personal allowance last year as the most effective way of helping everyone get more money into their pockets.
The Liberals have now stolen my idea with a suggested start of £10,000 allowance.
Better still would be £15,000.
Adjust tax rates higher up to compensate if you have to, or better still adjust the rate of VAT, to mitigate this action.
Why:
It would encourage those on Benefit to look for a job where the Tax take, did not make it easily rejectable on ecconomic grounds.
To simplify the system, incorporate national insurance and income tax, as one simple tax, with one starting point.
At the moment we have the nonesense of the State having to collect two seperat taxes from individuals at double the administration cost. No one belives that National Insurance contributions go to pensions and the HNS anymore, they all go into the big tax pot.
National insurance is the biggest Ponzi scheme ever developed, what you contribute today, is spent on someone else next week.
There are many more areas that could be attacked to reduce the overwhelming cost of administration, if they want some help then ask the readers of this site.

The Obama Deception :-
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=7886780711843120756&ei=OeDgSfSYG46y-AbknsW0DQ&q=the+obama+deception&hl=en

Why didn’t they do a deal with African farmers for bio fuel, cheeply produced and far “greener” (as well as helping them trade their way out of poverty instead of being on benefits!) oh for some common sense in goverment once again.

What I am missing is a review of the outcome of these earlier bold plans. I fear that the results may be a potential source of Brown embarrassment and are hard to find. If anyone can supply this data, I should be interested to see…

As far as I can gather, this government is spending £200 million plus running the Treasury and £400 million plus on “actuarial” processes throughout its empire. Somewhere in that empire there must be a spreadsheet that costs the budgetary impact of all primary and secondary legislation. If there isn’t, there should be. Perhaps someone has actually worked out the “4Es” of that spending. Economy; Efficiency; Effectiveness and Equity in number terms.

Until you know these numbers, you can’t cut expenditure in a surgical fashion.

Some guy said a while back; “The citizen can do anything he likes unless there is a law that stops him. The state can do nothing unless there is a law that allows it”. We seem to have forgotten that this statement is one of the prime directives of a democracy.

Remember, what a government borrows to cover its deficits is less important, (as long as you don’t scare the markets), as the amount the government SPENDS! It is government SPENDING that kills the economy as it is extremely poor at generating new and better goods and services which the private sector does much, much better.

Reply: Yes, we will map the waste and watch the Bank

It may be hard and unpleasant to sack these poor people, but IMHO they are the same three or so million that were doing nothing in the old subsidised industries that Thatcher took an axe to in 1979. They have been let down – again – by failed lefty policies. It’s tragic.

Borrowing money to subsidise things real customers don’t want is, of course, making it worse. Indeed I think over the last year if government actually had done nothing but start balancing its books we would be coming out of recession by now.

Lets start dismantling the benefits culture by removing this plank – replace it with a simpler personal tax regime with higher personal allowances – easier to administer, less state interference in our lives, and puts money back in our pockets rather than as a handout from Government.

A simpler tax regime should increase the take, reduce the cost of administration (e.g. the huge sums spent on HMRC’s IT) and make compliance and avoidance easier to manage.

This is not about tax cuts (as we cannot currently afford them), but about having an effective and efficient personal tax regime.