Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Universal Benefits
Tim Montgomerie thinks they will be the pivotal issue and so , for what its worth, do I . If the coalition get this wrong it presents the only way New Labour can get back in the game . Tax rises on the Southern middling family , which is what withdrawing benefits amounts to is a betrayal of Conservative Voters
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3 comments:
It's hard to strike the right balance isn't it? Your doomed if you don't and your doomed if you do.
I liked the old straight forward way - child benefits all round, child tax allowances on salaries, mortgage interest relief, unemployment and sick benefit, pensions, ect.
It's got far too complicated and needs an army of lazy tossers to administrate.
Aye, but I wouldn't trust Gideon Osborne to acknowledge a truth which even Ed Miliband has got his head around.
Some of these benefits are ones I wouldn't have devised if we were starting from scratch, but I see no viable or equitable way of abolishing them so they should remain universal.
There is also the empire of means-testing for pension-related benefits, whereas we should have a basic retirement pension higher than it now is & less additional stuff, adding up to the same or less cost. That will make some people worse off but it would be outweighed by encouraging marginal people to save more.
As I say, I am starting to frown upon Osborne. I do think it's the fact that he knows nothing but hardcore wealth, whereas most Tory voters are genuinely "middle class" & the rest of us are usually properly working-class. He doesn't grasp how much difference is made around the edges of 15, 20, 25k a year. I never liked Duncan Smith much for his CSJ work but he hasn't been so bad in recent times.
You are also right Retiredandcrazy. I am troubled by how many "private sector" companies receive state largesse. A lot of my mates are on the dole (it is an unemployment blackspot- they are not chavs, I wouldn't hang round with chavs) & they have tales to tell. Yet their benefit costs less than some tit's salary for not doing much.
R and C thanks or that I think I agree
Agreed also Asquith you would not invent it but then I would not invent the NHS... also I would never get rid of it .
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