Spread thin can be tasty

Just as pressure groups can sometimes be effective because they are passionately concerned about one view that most people oppose but don't care much about, so one of the problems with the tax system is that it is easy to see how much an individual would benefit from lower tax, but harder to see who would suffer from the change - that money is spread over so many school children, sick people, public servants and so on. We hear so much about the competitiveness implications of higher tax: surely balance suggests we should hear as much about what those tax pounds do.