Categories: ranting
Date: 19 September 2009 11:07:27
The conference season is starting and in the mist of a global recession the debates about spending cuts and the welfare state are taking centre stage. With an election only months away, and a disillusioned electorate this year matters. Radical changes and solutions are needed to get us out of the hole which has been created, but so apparently are scapegoats. Thus, when the talk about spending cuts is over one senses the other target this conference season is likely to be immigration and asylum. The politicians are taking a lurch to the right in the effort to gain votes.
This week we have Nick Clegg demonstrating everything that made me leave the party. I was planning to rejoin, but having read this interview in todays Guardian I am glad the person I e-mailed asking for a new membership form never replied.
Let me start by saying I recognise that reform is needed and that I also know that politicians have a hard job. I think we should all pray for them and seek to support them and the civil servants they work with much more. However, the current debates are already sending a huge number of "danger signals" and illustrating the problems in the system we currently have.
One area that is discussed and is likely to be an area of further debate is child benefit. Quite reasonably Clegg states that "I find it odd that people on multi-million pay packages from the city get child benefit. That's patently silly and patently unfair,". So this begs the question should we means test child benefit? The answer to this is no, partly for the reasons given by Yvonne Roberts in her article "The Universal Truth About Child Benfit". Another reason I would add to her article is that it would particularly penalise middle class women. There are many lower middle class parents who are paying their mortgages whilst still paying back their student loans, trying to contribute to their pensions and thinking about the looming prospect of paying for their children going to uni. For these men and women, who means testing basically peanalises because it focuses on their income not their outgoings, child benefit is important for buying things like food. Their kids won't get EMA, their tax credit payments will be minimal but their budgets are tight. These are the families that will suffer invisibly. These are our nurses, teachers, social workers, bank customer service workers (or whatever cashiers are called these days) and so forth.
So what is the solution? Well, I would argue it would be to leave child benefit as a universal benefit but use the tax system to take the money back from those in the highest tax bracket. This has the benefit of meaning that if the womans income falls then the deduction can be stopped and the benefit of child benefit is automatic and quicker.
In terms of where cuts need to be I think there needs to be an honest debate which does not focus upon the "easy scape goats" of Daily Mail stereotyping. There does need to be honest discussion of where savings can be made and where inefficency can be found. There also needs to be a discussion on what our priorities are as a nation. Yet, this needs to be discussed alongside the taxation debate. Is the key not to cut benefits more but to target the taxation system more selectively. Thus, alongside the information on children, etc being used to give credits should it also be used to collect tax aswell from sectors of society. Similarly, if those in the higher brackets are identified as having benefitted from higher education should they then pay a premium rather than the fees system?
In terms of where cuts should be made I am not totally sure, but I know we need to make decisions and think about our views as a culture. I sat in a doctors waiting room with Third Party yesterday, as she waited to have an immunisation against cervical cancer (hopefully a way to save money for the NHS in the future) and saw a poster saying "who wants their children to live longer?" with everybodys hands in the air. I turned to Third Party and expressed my view that actually I didn't want her to live longer. We live in a developed society with high mortality rates where we live a good amount of time. After a certain point, because of the way we are designed, many of us start to slow deteriorate quite heavily and lose quality of life, yet our society seeks to keep people alive as long as possible at a great cost to the NHS and care system. In reality I think if we accepted that death comes as it comes and allowed people to die at a more natural age rather than wanting each generation to live longer this might be one way of saving money and producing a more healthy society. Additionally posters like that are soooooo a waste of money. If the government focused on using media more effectively that would also make considerable savings.
Please note in what I have said about older people I do not wish to make it sound like I don't value older people or that I advocate euthanasia on any basis other than living wills for terminal illness. I think older people are one of the greatest resources we have, and undervalued as a resource. However, I am not into extending the average length of life beyond what nature actually intends through the use of science. Having a belief in the value of life means valuing the quality of life aswell.
Additionally whilst I don't believe we can just spend our way out of recession I do think that if we changed our ideas about home ownership and got back into social housing as a way forward that might be another way forward. Keynesian economics didn't get it all right we know, but equally they didn't get it all wrong either. The health care debate in the US should be telling us in the UK that with the NHS and universal healthcare we have a valuable resource that we need to protect rather than dismantle.