The Loss of The UK Dream

I love England, the land of my birth, and I visit every year for six weeks in the summer to play golf and see old friends. But my decision to visit the USA in November 1980, just after my 18th birthday, was the best of my life. I have lived and continue to live the “American Dream” ever since. But, while British comedian Al Murry, aka?"The Pub Landlord,"?jokes about the British not needing a dream because "They are awake," the chances of any kid in Britain coming out of college being able to do what I did in the USA by the time I was thirty, are very slim at best. Everything is set up against them, from taxes to house prices, and the standard of living in the UK continues to decline.?

I will skip the beginning stages of a career, and use round numbers.

If you make ￡100,000 a year living in the United Kingdom, you will be taxed ￡34,396. That means your net pay will be ￡65,604 per year or ￡5,467 monthly. Your average tax rate is 34.4%, and your marginal tax rate is 43.3%. Let's split the difference and call it 39%.

Then there is a 20% sales tax (Vat) on almost everything you buy except groceries. So as soon as you purchase anything, your tax rate is really 59% of your income. By comparison, the sales tax in Florida is 6.5%.

Plus, there are huge additional taxes on things like gasoline, which is $10 plus a gallon. It is currently $3.30 in Florida. There is no free parking anywhere, and you have to pay a tax just to enter London in a car. Add in road tax, tv license, pet license yea, really,?you have to have a figgin license for your TV ( ￡159) and your dog (￡12.50 per dog) !

If you live a normal active life around in the UK easily 65% of your income goes in taxes and I bet I'm missing a bunch.?

This is what a 250,000 pound house looks like in Florida, in a nice?neighborhood?

Then there are the house prices. The median home price is ￡286,397, roughly the same in dollars as in the USA, depending on the fluctuating pounds value. But the size, quality, and value you get on a UK home is roughly half what you'd expect in the USA. Plus, unlike the US, you can no longer take your mortgage interest as a tax deduction. So the chances of anyone saving enough for a 20% down payment without wealthy parents are small.

All things considered, I'm at least 30 percent better off living in the USA than making the same amount of money in the UK. Plus, I can save or write off far more of it and thus accumulate it far quicker.

There is a lot of anti-American sentiment in Europe, some of it justified by poor foreign policy decisions in the past, but most of it is just jealousy. You can run all arguments you like about the state of US politics, but the UK has been an even bigger circus lately.?

You can talk all you want about crime, but I haven't locked my house in the US in thirty years.?

As for health care, it's the best in the world, and yes, you could count health insurance as an additional US Tax, but for most people not employed by the government or large cooperation which cover them, that percentage would be about 5% of their income. And what most people in Europe don't know is that you get free Medicare for all at 65 years of age.

The fact is the UK needs to be a lot more like the US, no matter how much it hates to hear that:

• More entrepreneurial
• Less regulated about almost everything – When are we REALLY going to get rid of those 2200-plus worthless laws Brussels enacted?
• Less woke and special interest, although sadly, the US is fast gaining in this department.
• Young people need to have a clear way up the ladder.
• Taxes for ordinary middle-class people need to be far less, while all the corporations that dodge them, like Starbucks and Amazon, need to start paying them or get kicked out of the country.

The UK's Failed Covid Policy?

There were so many promises about cutting red tape and taxes after Brexit about a new entrepreneurial Britain, with free trade deals around the world. All gone and blamed, of course, on Covid. Actually, what was to blame was the UK government's failed Covid policy of draconian lockdowns.?

By contrast, Florida locked down for one month, played at it for a second month, then said screw it, we are not doing this. The result was a massive economic boom in the state as people flocked from other states to continue a normal life. (A dozen states had higher death rates and twenty more where about the same.)

New Britain??

Britain has so much going for it, a great location, beautiful countryside, talented people, a great history, and strong alliances with multiple countries. Now is the time to help our young men and women believe in a "British Dream", one that encourages them to work hard, invest in themselves, and reap the just rewards of their efforts.?

Let's hope the new prime minister, or the one next month has some answers!?

God save the king.?