Originally Posted by
bspatz
Is it me or is there something going on that I do not understand. When I was a boy the country was struggling after the war yet we ran a large military a large police force with a policeman on every corner, a large NHS that never seemed to have any of the current problems and a civil service that was admired worldwide. Nowadays the country is richer than it has ever been and nothing seems to be affordable; the treasury cuts, sells and saves at every opportunity and the Air Cadets seems to be caught up in the mindset that savings need to be made at every opportunity.
In those days things were a lot cheaper - we certainly weren't paying millions per Lightning let alone for our other cold war inventory assets. The other thing we didn't have was a 20% income tax rate. Most people have been quite happy to receive a tax cut in most budgets over the last decade or so, but few realise that reduced contributions mean less in the pot to pay for public services such as the NHS, the Police and the Forces.