Scotland’s constitution is not the problem
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Today, a quarter of people in Scotland are directly employed in public service. This compares to 20% in England, though it’s still well under Northern Ireland’s near-Greek 29%. But that’s before we count Scotland’s large, effective secondary public-sector market, made up of everything from public-relations firms to construction companies.
Read the rest of the article in the Wall Street Journal.
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I sometimes remark, only partially in jest, that the Barnett formula’s funding allocation in the UK is terribly unfair – how unjust of us to force an even larger burden of Government than our own on those north of the border, one that could never organically arise due to limitations in the tax base. The weak economy in Scotland is hardly a surprise when one considers that 25% of the workforce are directly prohibited from participating in wealth creation by being employees of the government. Not to mention the large number of unemployed (and the many underemployed people, which government conveniently leaves out of its figures) people who are kept from the workforce by the combination of benefits only available to those not in work, creating a disincentive to work, and in the case of many lowskilled workers, particularly young people, a minimum wage that rids them of any chance to work and gain new skills on the job by forbidding them from entering into any employment that does not pay more than their labour is worth.