Stephanie
Diamond Member
- Jul 11, 2004
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We'll be there soon enough, we can call it the ObamaNation
SNIP:
By Peter Hitchens
PUBLISHED
12 EST, 12 January 2013| UPDATED: 20:12 EST, 12 January 2013
Britain cannot possibly afford its welfare state for much longer. Most people do not realise that state handouts (£207 billion a year) mop up every penny we pay in income tax (£155 billion a year).
Everything else, the NHS, schools, transport, police, defence, interest on the debt (nearly £50 billion a year, by the way) must be paid for by other taxes, including the vast sums raked in by so-called National Insurance, or by more borrowing.
As we are more or less bankrupt as a country, such generosity is not noble but plain idiotic. Yet we will not stop doing it. Change is politically impossible.
Unaffordable: Britain pays out £207billion in state benefits a year - eating up the £155billion paid in income tax
Last weeks fuss about supposed cuts in benefits was a sign of the swamp we are in.
There were, as usual, no actual cuts. A hesitant plan to cap future increases was met with angry hostility by many in politics and the media.
Emotions were immediately engaged and slammed into top gear. That is because this immense and unaffordable attempt to substitute the State for the married family is at the heart of the political revolution which began 50 years ago and is now reaching its sad and bankrupt end.
The very idea that people should provide for themselves has become a horrible heresy, a barbaric view that no civilised person can hold. Well see.
all of it here:
Read more: Britain can no long afford to pay the extortionate cost of the welfare state | Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
SNIP:
By Peter Hitchens
PUBLISHED
12 EST, 12 January 2013| UPDATED: 20:12 EST, 12 January 2013Britain cannot possibly afford its welfare state for much longer. Most people do not realise that state handouts (£207 billion a year) mop up every penny we pay in income tax (£155 billion a year).
Everything else, the NHS, schools, transport, police, defence, interest on the debt (nearly £50 billion a year, by the way) must be paid for by other taxes, including the vast sums raked in by so-called National Insurance, or by more borrowing.
As we are more or less bankrupt as a country, such generosity is not noble but plain idiotic. Yet we will not stop doing it. Change is politically impossible.
Unaffordable: Britain pays out £207billion in state benefits a year - eating up the £155billion paid in income tax
Last weeks fuss about supposed cuts in benefits was a sign of the swamp we are in.
There were, as usual, no actual cuts. A hesitant plan to cap future increases was met with angry hostility by many in politics and the media.
Emotions were immediately engaged and slammed into top gear. That is because this immense and unaffordable attempt to substitute the State for the married family is at the heart of the political revolution which began 50 years ago and is now reaching its sad and bankrupt end.
The very idea that people should provide for themselves has become a horrible heresy, a barbaric view that no civilised person can hold. Well see.
all of it here:
Read more: Britain can no long afford to pay the extortionate cost of the welfare state | Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
