Reacting to the Autumn Budget statement delivered by the chancellor Rachel Reeves today, Green Party Treasury spokesperson, Adrian Ramsay MP, said:
“Instead of delivering a transformational Budget to tax extreme wealth fairly and tackle the cost-of-living crisis, this Labour Government has once again chosen to paper over the cracks – with half-measures that won’t do enough to fix the deep-rooted problems in our economy that are keeping ordinary people in poverty while the super-rich get richer.
“The Chancellor spoke about asking everyone to make a contribution, but it is frankly inexcusable that she has made the political choice to squeeze households already struggling with the cost of essentials, whilst letting multimillionaires and billionaires off the hook.
“It is indefensible that the Chancellor is cutting vital home insulation funding, one of the best ways to lower bills.
“And whilst scrapping the cruel two-child benefit cap will be a huge relief to families across the country, it is unforgivable that it has taken 18 months for the Chancellor to acknowledge the terrible harm and distress this cap has caused to so many families. Far more action is needed to end the scandal of child poverty.”
Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Greens call for the introduction of immediate and long term cost of living measures to cut bills by hundreds of pounds, and a package of fair wealth taxation measures to raise over £30 billion a year.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski said:
“It is a political choice to keep children in poverty whilst billionaires and multimillionaires get richer, that’s just a fact, and any politician who says otherwise doesn’t have the public’s interests at heart.
“Our country is and has been for a long time now at breaking point. Life has become literally unaffordable for millions of people. People are angry, and I get it, our communities deserve so much better. It is time for bold policies and bold choices that make a real difference to ordinary people
“But instead of facing this reality head-on, this Labour government, like the Conservatives before it, has stood by whilst the 1% get ever richer at the expense of ordinary people.”
The Green Party leadership team, together with Green MPs, Peers, and 20 Green Council Leaders and Deputy Leaders – have joined forces to urge the Chancellor to tax wealth fairly, end the cost-of-living crisis and deliver real change.
In a letter sent to the Chancellor today [Wednesday 19th November] the Green Party is calling on the government to commit to immediate and long term measures to address the cost-of-living crisis and bring children out of poverty.
Senior Green figures are urging Reeves to tax wealth by:
Implementing a 1% tax on wealth over £10 million and 2% over £1 billion, raising £14.8 billion per year.
Aligning rates of Capital Gains Tax – currently the lowest in the G7 – with income tax so income from work is not taxed more than income from wealth, raising an additional at least £12 billion per year.
Introducing National Insurance on investment income, in line with employment income, to raise at least £6.1 billion per year.
Senior Green figures are urging Reeves to tackle the cost-of-living by:
Moving policy costs off bills, cutting typical household energy bills by £156 per year.
Stopping gas prices inflating the price of electricity, cutting bills by at least £65 per year.
Scaling up nationwide retrofit.
Ending profiteering off essentials: bringing energy retail companies and water into public ownership.
Giving Local Authorities the power to control rents, similar to Scotland.
Scrapping the two child benefit cap in full.
Extending free school meals to all primary and secondary school children.
Greens say the package of measures would raise over £30 billion a year to spend on tackling the cost-of-living crisis and bringing down household energy bills, which have risen by 42% since 2021.
Last year, billionaires saw their collective wealth increase by £35 million a day and Britain’s 50 richest families now hold more wealth than half the population combined.
The Greens argue that taxes on the super-rich should be used to move policy costs away from electricity bills, saving a typical household around £156 a year from their electricity bill. The government should pay for these policy measures through wealth taxation instead. In addition to this, they call for decoupling the price of electricity from expensive gas, which they say could cut bills by at least £65 per year for the average household.
In light of rumoured cuts to the government’s flagship Warm Homes Plan, they are also calling on the government to ‘scale up’ investment in home insulation, to reduce bills in the long-term.
As well as scrapping the two-child benefit cap in full, the Greens are also pushing the Chancellor to extend free school meals to every child to help families with soaring food prices, which have risen by over a third since 2020.
Green Party Treasury Spokesperson Adrian Ramsay MP said:
“The Chancellor has spent the past 16 months claiming that there isn’t enough money to lift children out of poverty, ensure warm homes for pensioners, or provide vital support for people with disabilities.
“But the truth is Starmer and Reeves are choosing to make life harder for ordinary people while refusing to even consider taxing wealth fairly to unlock billions of pounds for the public purse.
“We’re making clear that there are common-sense steps this government could and should take to raise revenue and deliver the change people are crying out for.”
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Demonstrators carry signs calling out Donald Trump’s refusal to release files from the federal case against deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his former friend, in New York City’s Times Square on October 14, 2025. (Photo by Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“Your eleventh-hour decision to not fight a vote in the House that you were certainly going to lose is yet another dodge,” Democratic legislators wrote to the president, a former friend of the dead criminal.
After President Donald Trump’s sudden about-face on the US House of Representatives’ imminent vote to force the release of files on deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a group of state legislators on Monday urged Trump to prove he is serious by not waiting for Congress to make public materials from the federal case against his former friend.
In a letter provided to Common Dreams by the group Defend America Action, the 15 elected Democrats called on Trump and his administration to “put the issue of the Epstein files to bed once and for all” and “focus on what the American people are concerned about: the affordability crisis which has exploded on your watch.”
“Just a few weeks ago, Americans from Georgia to Virginia to New Jersey registered their dissatisfaction with your economic performance with overwhelming victories for Democrats up and down the ballot,” they noted. “That should’ve been a wake-up call for you and your administration, but instead, you’ve turned to an all-too familiar strategy of gaslighting the American people with tales of a booming economy that don’t match reality.”t don’t match reality.”
“We need bipartisan solutions to the cost of living crisis, not multiple congressional committees, investigations, and precious floor time devoted to files related to Jeffrey Epstein, which you could release with the stroke of a pen.”
US House Democrats and a few Republicans have long fought to make the Department of Justice release its files on the late financier, which Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) recently pushed off for weeks by refusing to swear in Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.)—a delay he tried to blame on the government shutdown.
As the shutdown standoff over a looming healthcare crisis came to an end, Johnson finally administered the oath of office to Grijalva, who swiftly became the crucial 218th signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on the Epstein files. While her decision set up a December vote, Johnson then moved up the timeline.
With many House Republicans expected to vote for releasing the files as early as Tuesday, Trump sent shockwaves through the US on Sunday by suddenly declaring his support for the disclosure. He doubled down on Monday, telling reporters that he would sign the bill if it reached his desk but also returning to his claim that “the whole thing is a hoax.”
Trump on if he'll sign an Epstein files release bill: "We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do. All of his friends were Democrats. You look at this Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, Clinton… all I want is I want for people to recognize the great job I've done on pricing, on affordability."
As the state legislators wrote to Trump: “You have called the issue of the Epstein files a ‘hoax,’ and dismissed the numerous congressional efforts underway to pursue transparency, accountability, and justice for the hundreds of victims who suffered at Epstein’s hands. This issue has again overtaken Washington, DC, and you have mobilized enormous government resources, up to and including meetings in the ultra-secure Situation Room, to try to prevent the files’ release.”
“Your eleventh-hour decision to not fight a vote in the House that you were certainly going to lose is yet another dodge—you could order the full release of the files today so that we can all move forward and deal with the issues our voters and yours care about: making life affordable for American families,” they argued. “Those priorities should be addressing the skyrocketing costs that are keeping families up at night: housing, food, energy, and healthcare.”
“We need bipartisan solutions to the cost of living crisis, not multiple congressional committees, investigations, and precious floor time devoted to files related to Jeffrey Epstein, which you could release with the stroke of a pen,” they continued, stressing the need for “good partners” and “good policies” at the federal level to aid American families struggling with soaring prices. “Release the files and let’s get on with the business of the American people.”
Signatories to the letter include Iowa Rep. Kenneth Croken, Vermont Rep. William Greer, Colorado Sen. Cathy Kipp, Michigan Rep. Stephen Wooden, and Kentucky Rep. Lisa Willner. It is also signed by Pennsylvania Reps. Danilo Burgos and Arvind Venkat, Maryland Dels. Ashanti Martinez and Vaughn Stewart, Wisconsin’s Sen. Melissa Ratcliff and Rep. Ryan Clancy, and four lawmakers from New Hampshire: Reps. John Cloutier, Chris McAleer, Terri O’Rorke, and Terry Spahr.
Donald Trump and his paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein.Donald Trump and his paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein.Donald Trump picture with one of his wives, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
An aerial view of a 33 megawatt data center with closed-loop cooling system, amid warehouses on October 20, 2025 in Vernon, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
“It’s hard to see utility bills coming down in this decade,” said one industry analyst.
Although the rising cost of groceries has gotten a lot of attention in recent weeks, US consumers are also increasingly under pressure from the rising cost of electricity.
A new report from researchers at The Century Foundation and financial abuse watchdog Protect Borrowers has found that the average overdue balance on utility bills has surged by 32% over the last three years, going from $597 in 2022 to $789 in 2025. What’s more, the report estimates that roughly 1 out of every 20 US households has utility debt that is “so severe it was sent to collections or in arrears.”
The increase in overdue utility bill debt has come at a time when electricity costs have been growing significantly faster than the overall rate of inflation, the organizations found.
“Comparing twelve-month moving averages from March 2022 to June 2025 (to adjust for seasonality), monthly energy costs… nationwide rose from $196 to $265—a 35% jump, or nearly three times overall inflation during that period,” noted the report.
The organizations said that the reasons for these price increases are complicated, although factors include “poorly regulated monopolies overcharging customers to the tune of $5 billion a year,” as well as the explosion in the construction of energy-devouring artificial intelligence data centers and the Trump administration’s attacks on renewable energy projects that began under former President Joe Biden’s administration.
AI data center construction has become a major controversy in communities across the US, and a CNBC analysis published late last week found that “in at least three states with high concentrations of data centers,” electric bills have grown “much faster than the national average” over the last year.
Virginia, which has the highest concentration of AI data centers in the country, saw electricity prices surge by 13% over the last year, while data center-heavy states such as Illinois and Ohio saw electricity costs go up by 16% and 12%, respectively.
Rob Gramlich, president of power sector consulting firm Grid Strategies, told CNBC that the massive growth in data centers means that “it’s hard to see utility bills coming down in this decade.”
The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers conclude that their report paints “a grim picture” of “increasing energy prices, rising overdue balances, and squeezed household budgets that together are pushing families deeper and deeper into debt.”
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
