So - What Should The Government Be Doing?

[sunny-dave]

A spin off from here :

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1337286.html

We still need (as a country) to save a few bob ... and the obvious stuff (scrap Trident, tax the rich, make companies pay their way) doesn't seem to be palatable to the current government.

So let's have some ideas from the great AB think tank.

I'll start you with:

1. Change the EU rules on benefits and healthcare. I suggest a very simple amendment :

"A person will receive the healthcare and benefits provided by his native country - regardless of where he lives"

So if we go abroad we get the free healthcare and good benefits which we have paid for, if someone from elsewhere in the EU comes here then they pay for healthcare as if at home and get whatever benefits they would get at home.

We can argue about what 'native country' means - perhaps it could be actually be based on a mixture of birthplace and where you have paid taxes recently.


2. "No person who has not regularly contributed to the tax/insurance system will ever get benefit (including the State Pension) amounting to more than (say) 50% of that which would be paid to someone with a full contributions record".

This would reward the "net contributors who have fallen on hard times" at the expense of idle scrotes of the "I'm entitled" persuasion.


Over to you ...

[pixie373]

//What about the women who have taken time out to raise a family and haven't regularly contributed to the system ? "

With an exception made for widows, they will have to rely on the father of their children.//

but nj, they often don't pay for their children - let alone their wives/exes.

[Svejk]

they might keep their wife and family all their working life and move in with a young Romanian bird shortly before retiring.

[sunny-dave]

What exactly is your beef with me, svejk?

I'm getting seriously knobbed off with the 'politics of envy' which you seem to be indulging in. Because I have provided for my own (quite early) retirement by living quite frugally and saving during my working life, it doesn't mean I'm not entitled to opinions about what society provides for others - whether they be 'hard working sons of toil' or indigent scrotes.

At no point have I mentioned/suggested ending means testing - the very reverse in fact - what I'm banging on about is restricting 'universal' (ie non means tested) benefits to those who have contributed to 'the system'.

There will need to be a continued means tested safety net ... it might just need to be set slightly lower if the country is to afford it.

It's about perceived fairness - a lot of us who have paid in for many years (like you I suspect) are feeling that we may as well have just pissed it all away and then expect a free ride. It can't continue, the sums just don't add up.

[pixie373]

And that is exactly how my 80/90 year old clients feel.

[mushroom25]

pixie373

//What about the women who have taken time out to raise a family and haven't regularly contributed to the system ? "

With an exception made for widows, they will have to rely on the father of their children.//

but nj, they often don't pay for their children - let alone their wives/exes.

quite, pixie. it would be fine if the CSA weren't marginally less effective than a chocolate tea-pot.

[Svejk]

god, its nothing personal. I'm just saying its a complicated area with no simple solutions. For instance, would you say that wealthy people, who have moved to warmer climes, should receive heating allowance. After all, they've paid in all their lives.
There's an element of TIC in everything I say, dave. please don't take it personally. ;o)

[Svejk]

they're opposite sides of the same coin, dave. A universal pension will do away with means testing. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, but again, its complicated and would, doubtless, throw up some strange anomalies.

[tamborine]

Scrap the benefit system & no one will want to come here ;)