5 - THE LATER BUDGETS
from Part II - At the Treasury – Domestic War Finance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
Summary
For the rest of the war, budgetary policy operated within the principles established in April 1941, both in form and substance, doing little more than consolidate the ground and polish the rough edges. In the process of consolidation and smoothing Keynes took a relatively less active part than previously in areas beyond his continuous brief concerning the national income and expenditure estimates and their implications. Given his other preoccupations, this is understandable. Nevertheless, on occasion his contributions were important.
Keynes's opening proposals for the 1942 Budget represented his last large-scale attempt to shape the overall structure of a budget.
NOTES ON THE BUDGET
1. The features of the last Budget were (a) a great increase of revenue; (b) a concentration on direct taxation; (c) the stabilisation of prices. It might be described as a financial policy Budget.
I suggest that the next Budget should be of a different character, fit to be described as a social policy Budget, and should primarily aim at adjusting various social anomalies which have developed out of the war situation and also out of the previous Budget itself.
2. It is too early to give a reliable estimate of expenditure. But two forecasts can be made with some confidence:–
(i) The yield of taxation on the basis of existing taxation will considerably exceed the estimates of this year's revenue,—partly because we shall have the benefit of a full year of the new taxes, partly because the buoyancy of the revenue is much above expectations.
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- Information
- The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes , pp. 355 - 392Publisher: Royal Economic SocietyPrint publication year: 1978