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Originally Posted by Chris
Except that it isn’t, because the NI fund has never been ring fenced, nor has welfare spending ever been isolated from the Treasury’s general tax take. Moreover, no government has ever claimed that was the case. NI was introduced in order to create a sense of ownership and fairness. Everyone paid in, everyone could take out. It was important, especially in the early days, to ensure the programme succeeded.
All taxation in a modern welfare state is inherently redistributive. Wealthy corporations and individuals pay in more, poorer individuals and economically deprived regions receive more.
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I know it isn’t that’s my point. While the system moves money around at the margins it fundamentally redistributes debt downwards to younger generations to cover the fact the generations who preceded them had no interests in funding public expenditure adequately.
---------- Post added at 12:13 ---------- Previous post was at 11:31 ----------
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Originally Posted by Chris
Ah, boomers …
With the necessary caveat that blaming boomers is a sweeping generalisation because they didn’t all get rich buying shares in BT, British Gas and their local electricity board, this is one of those rare, epoch-defining points on which I suspect we are in broad agreement.
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It’s a sweeping generalisation to claim they all got rich because
I didn’t claim that at all.
You can personally remain poor while still benefiting from a low tax economy, and get handouts that you made negligible contribution towards.
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However, the fact that boomers understand you influence governments by actually voting in elections rather than posting hashtags on the internet means that governments tend to be more responsive to their priorities.
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Yes, the voting system means it’s far more likely successive generations will kick the can down the road that seek to resolve the issue and make the tough choices on taxation required. Which is the crux of this thread - making it exclusively a working age tax.