Taxes cost jobs

Michael Kelly's article (Opinion, 15 April) is a very long way of saying that a free lunch, in the form of government intervention, is possible.

It is not true that cutting public expenditure will lead to greater job losses than a rise in National Insurance. The fact is that public expenditure does not lead to a net creation of jobs because it abolishes jobs in the private sector by taxing them away.

What also needs to be rejected is the idea that the entire economy belongs to the state, which has the right to expropriate as much as it feels is required. That is the basic premise behind the tax rises seen over the past decade and more, and it is entirely false.

BRUCE CRICHTON

Victoria Road

Falkirk