Tax universality
(previous post appears to have been overtaken by an actual riot)
From a Guardian commentisfree comment: "its just a little bit perverse to ask a shelf stacker to contribute more of their taxes so that a student can go to university for 3 years"
This sort of argument I've been seeing a lot lately, it's clearly going around, especially in the context of arguments over benefits. It's the classic tax protestor argument: find the easiest target of a government spending program and the worst example of taxation (e.g. little old ladies sent to prison for non-payment of poll tax), then play one off against the other. People who haven't been to university attacking the funding of it; people without children attacking the payment of child benefit; British nationals questioning why any benefits should be paid to non-nationals; people who hate art questioning arts funding; etc.
The Conservative party is quite happy to encourage this sort of thing, as it facilitates a miserly government agenda through eroding social solidarity. I say "miserly" rather than "small"; one which tells less well of people that there is no money while spending it on boondoggles. (In fairness the current government is cancelling the vanity projects of the previous one while not yet starting its own, apart from cyberwarfare and free schools)
From a Guardian commentisfree comment: "its just a little bit perverse to ask a shelf stacker to contribute more of their taxes so that a student can go to university for 3 years"
This sort of argument I've been seeing a lot lately, it's clearly going around, especially in the context of arguments over benefits. It's the classic tax protestor argument: find the easiest target of a government spending program and the worst example of taxation (e.g. little old ladies sent to prison for non-payment of poll tax), then play one off against the other. People who haven't been to university attacking the funding of it; people without children attacking the payment of child benefit; British nationals questioning why any benefits should be paid to non-nationals; people who hate art questioning arts funding; etc.
The Conservative party is quite happy to encourage this sort of thing, as it facilitates a miserly government agenda through eroding social solidarity. I say "miserly" rather than "small"; one which tells less well of people that there is no money while spending it on boondoggles. (In fairness the current government is cancelling the vanity projects of the previous one while not yet starting its own, apart from cyberwarfare and free schools)