Social spending typical implies a form of "wealth transfer" ... Typically things like welfare, food stamps, rental subsidies,and social security but some people would include spending on education and health care. Personally, I would say that education or health care wouldn't be a social program if the government is running these programs because they can deliver them at higher quality for less money than private industry, but they would be social programs if the government is running them to "increase fairness" in these systems.

Out of interest, where exactly did you get that figure from? It sounds incredibly dubious to me I'm afraid. I couldn't find any such figure with a quick Google search.

Most people in America avoid paying taxes??

Don't you guys get taxed before you get paid? which ensures there is money to fund stuff. That way people can't avoid them.

Yeah, we do.

Though we don't actually need money to fund stuff.   Look at California.

If you don't make enough money though you get a lot of that money back at the end of the year.

It's kinda a funny flipflop in this thread... since most of the time "The poor don't pay taxes" is a conservative talking point.   While "The poor pay taxes" is a liberal talking point.

Usually made based on how progressive the tax system should be.

The fact that people are argueing the poor don't pay taxes and are liberal is kind of funny.

Either way, the poor really could do with no having to "wait" for that money.  The majority of them would be better off... though a small number would get screwed.

It's the same with medical insurance, or fire insurance.

It's a gamble.  Ever since i came off my parents plan i've bought medical insurance.  There is a 90% chance if not higher that i'm not going to need it until I'm much older.

I could eaisly wait until I'm 35-40 to get health insurance and i would have banked something like.  $20,000-$40,000 over 10 years... not counting any money that would make in investments.

I don't because of the very small chance I get a serious conditon.

For the vast majority of people, insurance will always be a bad buy... even universal healthcare as most people have to by design put more money into the system then they will use to make up for the few people who develop heavy problems.

It's the same with fire insurance.

This guy played the odds and lost.  It's right to feel bad for him... but it seems silly to blame other people for something that was purely and soley self inflicted.

It's like someone losing his job because he became a drunk and blame the government for not making booze illegal.

Unitary governments are so much simpler =P

It's not even like the fire department was for the area where the house was located.  My understanding there isn't even a fire department based in that area.  This fire department was from a near-by area and sometimes contracts with home owners in that area.  However, this family refused to contract with the fire department.  Instead, they wanted to steal the government insurance which is a horrible thing to do.

LOL, you want to know something funny about my medical insurance.

At 26 i sure as hell don't need it. I pay like 115 a month (30% gov pays on top of that). However my mum signed up at the age of 45 for private insurance and she pays like 150 a month (not including the 30% gov pays) to catchup on the missed years of revenue for the insurance company. 

So what I am getting at is here they seem to recover all the lost revenue at a later stage, so why not get the insurance early anyway since you will pay much more later if you sign up late (late being after 30). 

It is a funny world we live in. All I know is a lot of people here want the tax system simplified.

It's different in the US.

In the US it costs more regardless of when you signed up.   Everyone pays the same price as everyone else of their age in their condition.  (On the same insurance plan.)

When you sign up isn't really relevent  because you don't "lock-in" rates.  

Really the insurance company's are just easy targets.   Healthcare companies here barely make any profits.  However they don't do anything "useful" so it's easy to say "screw greedy healthcare companies".

When the real people making all the money are the medicine and bio-tech companies.   We need new medicines and bio-tech afterall... and it's pretty obvious why the US is by far the leader of medical reaserch and development.

The US Is 82% of the biotechnology industry.

It was 75 dollars a year.
edit: Including link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/firefighters-watch-as-hom_n_750272.html