Can Our Country afford the Welfare State?

No. The pensions bill alone is going to eventually cripple the country, it's even worse in America. The baby-boomer generation have ****** this country mercilessly, got their houses for sod all, got their education for free and gave themselves generous retirement benefits. "I worked all my life and paid in" is nonsense. These people paid in a fraction of the amount they're drawing out, and then to top it off they voted for Brexit to get rid of the young immigrants who helped to foot the bill. Then they have the ******* cheek to complain about their TV licence being taken away.

If there's one section of society I'd go after it'd be the elderly, well before "scroungers". The elderly are just as capable of scrounging, let me assure you, and the elderly have no reservations about doing what's best for themselves with **** all consideration for the younger generations.

 

Tax gap (avoided, evaded and unpaid tax) is approximately £120bn.

 

We are one of the richest economies in the world.

Austerity is a lie.
It's Tory ideology in action.

 

For me, the first step has to be removal of universality of all benefits. Once we accept that say, family allowance is no longer universal - and I don't mind that i get zero family allowance for my children, I'm lucky enough not to need it - then we've crossed a threshold and at that point all benefits must become means tested, including, in my opinion, stuff like winter fuel payments and TV licenses and potentially even the state pension for those people fortunate enough not to need them. Because I honestly think state welfare should be about genuine need.

 

The dropping of universality is often muted as a solution to the reduction of the welfare bill. However, what this does is start to engender feelings of bitterness over those that do get the help and those that do not. Furthermore, it is then a slippery slope to continue to erode the principle of universality by starting to limit or ration access to other services such as the NHS.

Means testing often costs more than it saves too.

The root of all of this is that we simply do not pay enough tax or there are too many avoiding it. As posted by @Watcher_Of_The_Skies, the tax gap is £120 Billion....

 

I forget who first coined the phrase, but "a hand up, not a hand out" isn't a bad principle to start from. With that idea in mind I'd say it's a mark of a civilised society to provide some system of universal health care for it's citizens. The same might be said about ensuring some form of basic income for those who are elderly, or who through no fault of their own don't have the opportunity to work so as to provide at least a basic standard of living.

But the problem in this country is with that part of our national psyche that makes people want to enjoy these benefits but not to pay for them. Or those that have done well and prospered and then think the rest should get nowt. So I want the best possible social care for my parent or elderly relative but I don't want any of their riches using for the purpose so that I can get my grubby mitts on them in due course without any diminshment. It's a bit of a quandary if we don't want to stump up the taxes instead, as Kim Yong May is finding out.

 

Is it that you're lucky enough not to need it or have you worked your conkers off to ensure you don't need it.
I'll be lucky enough to take my family on holiday this year but is it luck when I work extra shifts all year on the back of originally putting myself through an apprenticeship years ago?
Is it luck when my wife works equally as hard after luckily putting herself through nurse training years ago
And is it luck that because we've made it clear that it's not an option to go on the dole when they're older, the kids work hard at school.
So maybe similarly to a lot of people on here, it's not down to luck but hard graft

 

Is it that you're lucky enough not to need it or have you worked your conkers off to ensure you don't need it.
I'll be lucky enough to take my family on holiday this year but is it luck when I work extra shifts all year on the back of originally putting myself through an apprenticeship years ago?
Is it luck when my wife works equally as hard after luckily putting herself through nurse training years ago
And is it luck that because we've made it clear that it's not an option to go on the dole when they're older, the kids work hard at school.
So maybe similarly to a lot of people on here, it's not down to luck but hard graft

 

Is it down to bad luck that I've posted twice or is it because I'm a gibbon?

 

I blame Thatcher.

 

Just because you and your wife have worked hard and don't need it now does not mean that you will not need it tomorrow. All it takes is bad luck and a bad driver and being in the wrong place at the wrong time and you could be unable to work for a long, long time. Heart attacks and strokes can happen at any time - especially as we get older, as can even nastier diseases.

It is not just health issues either. I've turned up to work in the past and found myself out of a job effective immediately (the site was closed and we were all redundant). I was only unemployed for 4-5 weeks (out of the last 22 years), but had to take a £10k pay cut as a result. Ten years later and I'm still trying to get over the mess that made of my finances.

 

Just because you and your wife have worked hard and don't need it now does not mean that you will not need it tomorrow. All it takes is bad luck and a bad driver and being in the wrong place at the wrong time and you could be unable to work for a long, long time. Heart attacks and strokes can happen at any time - especially as we get older, as can even nastier diseases.

It is not just health issues either. I've turned up to work in the past and found myself out of a job effective immediately (the site was closed and we were all redundant). I was only unemployed for 4-5 weeks (out of the last 22 years), but had to take a £10k pay cut as a result. Ten years later and I'm still trying to get over the mess that made of my finances.

 

Just because you and your wife have worked hard and don't need it now does not mean that you will not need it tomorrow. All it takes is bad luck and a bad driver and being in the wrong place at the wrong time and you could be unable to work for a long, long time. Heart attacks and strokes can happen at any time - especially as we get older, as can even nastier diseases.

It is not just health issues either. I've turned up to work in the past and found myself out of a job effective immediately (the site was closed and we were all redundant). I was only unemployed for 4-5 weeks (out of the last 22 years), but had to take a £10k pay cut as a result. Ten years later and I'm still trying to get over the mess that made of my finances.

 

How longs nigel. ******* farage been posting here. That question is right of his agenda

 

But I want a welfare state that looks after the needy, they deserve that chance.
The wife has an adult niece who's deaf and can't really hold a "normal"(terrible phrase) conversation so is very limited in the type of work she can do on top of finding school hard with the restrictions she had. She was told she wasn't deaf enough to attend a specialist school due to finance. Now this is criminal in my eyes along with if anything unfortunate happened to your good selves.

 

The state will look after you from cradle to grave, but is that a good thing?

The human race is basically lazy, or at least a large proportion of it is. If someone says to us, do not worry because whatever happens, someone else will pick up the bill, what message does that send out and how hard is it for a different message to be heard above that one. What does it say about the need to save, about the need to put something aside for a time when things might not be as good as they are today. What does it say about education/training and the need to better your employment opportunities. What does it say about the need to work hard in order to better the living standards of yourself and your family, and not have a disproportionate amount taken away from you and given to someone who had chances but who did not take them. Or as Viv Nicholson said, is it better to just spend, spend, spend, and let tomorrow take care of itself. Society will always produce genuine cases of need, which must be met by a caring society, but are we confusing that genuine need with a lifestyle choice. Has the welfare state delivered the message that you are not responsible for your own actions or your own mistakes and are the current levels of social indiscipline partly a result of a population that refuses to take responsibility for its actions.

These are unpopular things to think, let alone to voice. It is partly my age I suppose. Things were always better when you were young, but to my old eyes, society looks broken and in my search for a reason I wondered whether the welfare state is partly to blame. Has it gone too far in protecting us against the consequences of the decisions we took of our own free will.

 

Two things I would change (and this won't be popular):-

Cut working tax credit
I would also stop paying private rent for unemployed people. They should take out an insurance policy like people who have mortgages who get zero assistance until it is too late. Why should the tax payer pay off buy to let mortgages for individuals who own 20 properties.

 

Things were better when we were young?

Really rationing and the cold war. The aftermath of a terrible war. My nan was a servant at 13 could barely read or write til later in life. Lost 3 kids in childbirth. Widowed in her 20s from a husband who died of pit disease that she later received a 100 quids worth of compensation for.

the children of the poor were not educated. The children of the poor starved to death or died from preventable diseases. alcoholism was rife. Violence was endemic. Millions were slaughtered in world wars. As you get older it's easy to think life was better. It was not. Not everyone lived in Downton Abbey.

We are one of the richest nations on earth in an email of piece of course we should look after our people. Don't get me wrong anyone exploiting the system should be stopped and if relevant punished. But take the rose tinted glasses off.

More money is lost through error than benefit fraud. More money is left unclaimed than claimed fraudently. Vodafone avoid more tax in a year than is claimed fraudently in benefits.

 

My comments were from my own perspective. If yours was different, then it will undoubtedly influence the way that you think and the values that you hold. I was not brought up in Downton Abbey, but I was brought up with proper values. My family always voted Labour and would be very unhappy if they knew that I planned not to use my vote this time. I was taught not to vote from your own self-interest, but to vote for what is right. The problem is, I am not sure what is right any more. Yes, those with a social conscience will continue to vote Labour, but is it a vote to throw good money after bad. Our wealth is generated by our industries and commerce. Unless our government operates policies which offer fertile ground for new ideas and fuel for their growth and prosperity, then the individuals with ideas will take them elsewhere. Taxing to support a flawed welfare system is liable to stunt new ideas and rub out growth. A nation can only support a good welfare system if it is able to generate wealth. If growth stutters and fails, the country cannot support an expensive welfare system. It is important that we do not let past experiences or envy affect our balance. The decisions that we take, and the decisions that our government takes are about the future and not about the past. To my eye, much of Labour policy is rooted in the past, and that is why I can no longer support them.

 

If the minimum wage is transitioned to a living wage there would be no need for working tax credit....as we'd no longer be subsidising companies who don't pay properly. Of course I think there still needs to be some targeted help for smaller companies here.

The second issue goes away if we invest in social housing again.