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George Osborne for a day - how would you cut £13b?
So along with £12b from the welfare budget I saw no mention in the election of how a further £13b was going to be cut from Departmental budgets beyond the fact that there would be no cuts to education, NHS or overseas aid.
So where is this money going to come from?
This is really handy infographic showing where the money goes:
http://www.cityam.com/211879/budget-2015-interactive-how-much-does-each-government-department-spend
So excluding education, health, DFID & DWP (as they have to find a different £12b) what does that leave?
I can't really see how they can achieve anywhere near those savings without massive cuts to Local Authority spending, policing and higher education. That will basically mean the end to anything non-statutory in LAs (and probably bankruptcy in many cases as massive cuts have already been made) and pretty much the death of H.E. I'm not really sure what the impact would be on policing tbh but they've already made a lot of cuts so surely this will be fundamentally changing what the police actually do at this point?
Where else could they actually make significant cuts? MoJ? surely that would plunge prisons and the courts into absolute chaos. Environment Agency despite flood defence issues? Transport even though they've pledged massive spending? Defence even though that seems very un-Tory?
Like the £12b from welfare this next step is surely beyond the point of top-slicing and must change fundamentally what Government is actually doing? Did Tory voters actually buy into this e.g. the idea that there are no longer going to be libraries or parks or protection against flooding or police response to anything but the most serious of crimes?
And I know there are a few Tories on here so I'm honestly not looking for a fight, I'd just honestly like to hear where you think these cuts should come from and where you expect them to come from.