Reducing "middle class" subsidies on things such as railway tickets and gold would save another 1%.
Some examples of U.S. middle class subsidies include: Obamacare subsides that are available up to $90,000 in household income for a family of four, a myriad of education tax credits, the mortgage interest deduction, the state and local tax deduction, and child tax credits.
Today having free tuition ends up being a massive middle-class subsidy.
Another apparent risk is that the cashback deal becomes a middle-class subsidy for those already upgrading their boilers, while those on lower incomes find the Green deal finance too baffling or unattractive to take on.
State politicians across India have long won elections by promising cheap electricity, a middle-class subsidy in a country where the poor have no access to electricity at all.
He tried to bind voters to the Democratic Party with a web of middle-class subsidies.
But governments are unwilling to take the political risks of cutting middle-class subsidies".I was a smallholder in the Jordan valley near the Dead Sea," says Amjad Toukan of the Lebanese American University in Beirut.
And never mind that at the last election the revenue supposedly gained by soaking the rich would have been frittered away on middle-class subsidies such as abolishing university-tuition fees rather than used to fight poverty.
The changes, which will not affect homeowners who place panels on their roofs, will do nothing to appease one of the common arguments against "middle-class subsidies" for those who can afford small private arrays.
The Green Deal and its new successor, the Green Deal home improvement fund, are both in effect middle-class subsidies, aimed at home owners with enough savings to put cash up front.
