| FootballFan said: There are some good points here and bad points. There are some ucrrent day stupid idoitic policies in this country that leaves me wondering why it has taken so long to fall into 1 trillion £ debt (1). Take the heads of the burocrats for a start. Taking away the bus pass from pensioners are you ƒ//cking kidding me? Elderly British people have earned the right for some conforts considering they have paied tax into the system their entire lives. (2) Slash the foreign aid (3) before we slash our pensioners right for transportation. Overpopulation leaving nobody able to get a job immigration is a contrbuting factor to this but within reason we need to have immigration in order to counter act our ageing population. Henceforth, we should ONLY have EU immigration and cut other immigration as it is excessive (4).....unemployment is bound to rise and it's all Labours fault for employing everyone into the public sector and forgetting that it's the private sector that has to find everything....with that in obvious mass decline and very little being done it was a disaster waiting to happen. Every child someone has they get child tax credits. (5) After someone has 3 children slash the child tax credits/. If these familes want to have a 4th child then they can fund it out of their own back pockets.... Weight reduction (liposuction) on the NHS? Seriously? (6) Unless it is a genetic condition then......ok I will stop now. Rant over. Bit off topic (7) but....heck British politics is a mixed bag |
1) It took so long, because the ridiculous policies were coupled with a ridiculously excessive taxation regime. Government spending/taxation accounts for just under 50% of GDP. Compare this with the Rahn curve, which suggests that for optimum economic activity/prosperity, Government activity should account for between 15-25% of GDP (and, closer to the 15 than the 25... so, let's say 20% 
).
2) They may have paid into taxes all their life, but they also received unprecedented levels of Government help during those times. It's the taxes being collected today that are paying for these bus passes and current Government services, just as it was the taxes collected whilst the pensioners were working that paid for the services of those days. Expecting one generation to pay taxes to help pay for an older generation is unfair. Oh, wait...
3) I agree with this. I am of the belief that aid money is not only wasted, but it's actually detrimental to the developing world. Frankly, I believe that foreign aid makes both the givers and receivers worse off, in the long run. I see no genuine reason as to why this is being ringfenced... except, of course, political reasons: the international aid campaigners seem second only to the trade unions in terms of making a noise when they get angry.
4) I have a fundamental, ideological opposition to this view. The way I see it, we either completely open the boarders, and embrace full migration from the world over (and, indeed, the rest of the world should do it, too). After all, if it's beneficial for the economy for pan-European migration, then pan-Globe migration should be of even more benefit.... or, we propose the same boarder controls between the EU and non-EU countries. Why should somebody born in France, Poland, or Greece have any more right to come here than someone from USA, India, Cameroon, or China? There is no strong argument for having both limited out-EU, and unlimited intra-EU migration policies. Migration is either a good thing, or a bad thing, it doesn't matter where the people migrate from, at the end of the day.
5) I am of the understanding that full tax credits/benefits are only available to the first born child, anyways, and a reduced amount for all children beyond that. I question the child benefit/tax credit system, anywho... I mean, my parents don't even need them, and yet they still get them. Hell, they have to have them - my dad even got into some hassle with them a year ago or so - he had filled some paper work out wrong, which he had to do, and was on the phone to whoever it is that deals with this stuff. And they were treating him like he was trying to do them out of money, I remember him complaining afterwards, "I don't even need the bloody things, and now I'm being treated like a criminal because I filled something out wrong, which I had to fill out. It's not right."
6) How about........... completely changing the NHS so that it's more in the hands of the private sector, and is paid for via savings accounts, rather than an insurance scheme... that would solve both the financial and ethical problems of providing controversial health services.
7) That's ok... a thread devoted to a speech wouldn't go very far, expanding it lets it survive for longer.
