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September 2000 Fuel Crisis

So what do the government do?

Through the Budget the Government raises revenues which it uses to spend on things that the electorate sees as being important. The British public has a long record of being in favour of high expenditure on health and education, but against paying for it through direct income tax. The current Government was elected on a mandate to modernise the nation's health and education services. But with people being apparently unwilling to pay higher income tax (although this has never been put to the test) the funding of modernisation has to come from other, less obvious sources, such as Insurance Tax and so on. In fact, the so-called fuel tax 'escalator' was introduced by the previous Government and was abolished by this administration. Prices have risen because of other factors. It is also pointed out that the oil companies have been more than willing to increase pump prices when the price of oil goes up, but less happy to cut the price when oil prices fall.

Where taxpayers' money is spent:

Where taxes come from:

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