The state causes inequality. Expansions of the state cause expansions in (statistical) inequality, justifying expansions of the state. Spotting that tautology, and knowing why it’s wrong, has never been more essential.
The challenge is not that Britain’s young people are unwilling to work, but that too many have been allowed to believe they cannot.
The benefits system, created with the best of intentions, is no longer working. As a result, tens of thousands of people are receiving benefits they are not entitled to and thousands are earning money advising people on how to exploit the system.
True reform is not just about balancing the books. It is about renewing a system that too often fails both taxpayers and those it is meant to help.
When benefits rise without corresponding expectations or limits, the gap between being in work and relying on state support narrows. This can reduce incentives to increase working hours, seek higher-paid employment, or pursue training and education.
Behind the fond memories of a holiday to the coast lies a difficult reality – our coastal economies are being slowly choked, not for lack of talent or ambition, but by a government that doesn’t understand how they work.
Our deep addiction to welfare, such as child benefits, incites rage when anyone dares take it away.
Welfare excess is only one symptom of a state swollen beyond recognition. Few politicians have had the stomach to confront it. Instead, taxpayers are subjected to ever more creative levies.
The Conservative leader revealed that just since last year’s budget there are now a million more people claiming Universal Credit and repeated her concern that the UK under Labour will become a welfare state with an economy attached.
The Work and Pensions Secretary insists the “taper” means “you are always better off on a sliding scale.”
Britain’s political parties must decide whether they are on the side of working wealth-makers like Don, or the wealth-takers. To govern is to choose.
Budgets are big, long, detailed things by their very nature. There are some successes buried there, if we look hard enough. However, the best news from the budget was arguably in what it didn’t do, more than what it did
Children should be the full financial responsibility of their parents; not the taxpayer, thus, all child benefits must be abolished. All poor parents with large families would have to do to fully support themselves today is work a full-time job, move to a low rent area and be frugal.
It’s not so much the measures in the Budget that matter but the confirmation that this is a Labour Government in its comfort zone, led by a Prime Minister and a Chancellor who can’t or won’t challenge their party’s instincts and prejudices on the economy.
Motability is just one of the most visible and politically sensitive manifestations of the growth of disability caseloads among working-age individuals, a visible demonstration of the confused, expensive mess that the welfare system has become.