There is nothing wrong with a welfare state if fraudsters could be excluded and claimants could be assessed by local people who know the true situation. But, with a centralised bureaucratic control, vast amounts of fraud can take place. I know several people who've been misclaiming for years.
However, the biggest fault of the welfare state is that it creates an ever-widening state of dependency which demeans the individual and saps any form of enterprise. One Labour Party politician who has been studying the whole matter of welfare for many years and was, in the early years of the 1997 Labour Government, the Minister for Welfare Reform (but sacked fairly quickly for suggesting real reform), is Frank Field. Yesterday Frank Field predicted that the government's attempts to reform the National Health Service (NHS) will fail, that its family tax credit programme (thus guaranteeing a sort of basic wage for all) will encourage fraud and produce an unprecedented degree of welfare dependency. I follow with an excerpt from today's FT, written by Nicholas Timmins, public policy editor: <<<< The new range of tax credits, used to top up low wages and support children, means "the current means-tested strategy with cover 40% of the population, up from a third under the Tories", Mr Field said in a pamphlet published by Civitas, the free market social think tank. "Once the pensioner credit is introduced, this proportion will surge above the 50 per cent mark." Because the credit is withdrawn as earnings rise, "there is no way by which those most dependent on tax credits will be able by their own efforts to free themselves from this welfare dependency. Worse still, the standard of living this dependency offers will ensure a working of the system on an unimaginable scale. It will also, because of the huge sums involved, open up a totally new gold mine for fraudsters. "From now one, the government, not individuals by their own efforts, witll decide the living standards of the vast majority of working families with children. To rip ourt the mainspring of a free society -- the drive to improve one's lot and that of one's family -- cannot but harbinger ill for our country." The government's attempts to reform the NHS will be seen as "the last throw of the politics of central control", he said. >>>> KH ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
