Comments on: Upper class welfare

By: Andrew Leigh » Blog Archive » Around the blogs

Andrew Leigh » Blog Archive » Around the blogs — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 21:44:24 +0000

[...] Fred Argy reckons that Australia has too much “upper class welfare”. [...]

By: Amused

Amused — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 07:43:17 +0000

Sure we do Ken,
Because those of us who have responsibly husbanded our natural human capital (value added by subsidies from the great unwashed) can pay some low skilled, feckless psychologically maladjusted misfit, aka the usual suspect, a bit of pocket money to clean up our S**T! They can take it home and go through it to pick out undigested morsals and eat them! Simple really. You simply lack the moral rectitude (if I may be so bold) to fully comprehend what a beautiful set of numbers can be produced with the Right approach!

By: Ken Parish

Ken Parish — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 06:36:25 +0000

Or prisons, the court system, regulatory departments ensuring clean air, water, environmental protection etc etc, and therefore the tax office bureaucracy that collects the revenue to fund those public goods, and the democratic elective machinery that ensures their accountability (however imperfectly). You can’t effectively opt out of any of these things, in the sense of having arrangements made so that you don’t obtain benefit from those services if you don’t pay for them. And they’re all in essence natural monopolies (although I suppose you could have competing armies and police forces – like in Somalia and Afghanistan, for instance). Moreover, the opt-out principle doesn’t even make sense for some things that are in a sense “user pays”-based. For example, do we want people living in densely packed suburbia to be entitled to opt out of connection to the sewer so they can exercise their inalienable libertarian right to save money by shitting in their backyards thereby attracting flies and polluting the water-table and local runoff?

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 06:17:45 +0000

Can you opt out of spending on public goods like police, and defence? ;)

By: taust

taust — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 06:03:04 +0000

Re the Andrew Norton statistics. It looks as though if we made access to public services voluntary ie a reduced tax if you opted out both sides could get what they wanted.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 05:48:16 +0000

From the Australian Election Survey 2004, evidence that the public is evenly divided between Argyian optimism and Nortonian pessimism about taxing and spending.

Literal Question
D.13. If you had to choose, which of the following would be closest to your views? – Cutting my income tax would mean the government has less money to waste on spending that doesn’t benefit me – 1 – Cutting my income tax would mean the government has less money to spend on public services I really need – 2
Values Categories N
1 Less $ to waste on spending that doesn’t benefit me 804 50.8%

2 Less $ to spend on public services I really need 778 49.2%

-1 Missing 187

Summary statistics

By: Amused

Amused — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 05:45:05 +0000

And what’s a tax free kick for those who have a lazy mill to toss into their super fund yobbo? Reward for risk? Give us a break!

By: Yobbo

Yobbo — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 04:55:50 +0000

Tax Cuts are not welfare. A tax cut is giving money back to the people who rightfully earned it. The health insurance rebate also falls under this category.

The baby bonus and home buyers grants are fair game though.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 03:16:27 +0000

Fred – I would agree with everything in your second paragraph, but draw from it that the state is too wasteful and incompetent to be trusted with much of what you suggest in your first paragraph.

By: Droo

Droo — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 10:07:27 +0000

Why do you say “Australia has all its priorities cocked up”? The person who has their priorities ‘all cocked up’ is the PM of course, since its he who has been making economic and financial decisions for the country for the last 5 years. I think you’re being very mealy-mouthed in an attempt not to criticise Howard, who is of course ultimately responsible for these ‘cocked up’ decisions.

By: Chris Lloyd

Chris Lloyd — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 08:55:17 +0000

The most outrageous but of middle class welfare was the baby bonus. It was announced in March effective from July. So all those babies conceived after September were eligible even though they were already conceived!

On of my colleagues was in this group and tried to explain to his daughter that the government were going to give them $2000 for her new baby sister.

“We’re going to give her away for that?” she asked.

“No!” replied Dad. “They give us $2000 and we can keep the baby.”

“Why would they do that?” she asked. From the mouths of babes.