DaveO wrote:
No. It was an ideological choice made by Thatcher. Things like that may have been the excuse but she would have done it anyway.
They are still doing it. The "reforms" to the NHS are purely ideologically driven. Even the "have a loan until you die then pay it off" scheme for elderly care is ideological. We already pay Tax and National Insurance so in theory we already pay for the care required. The trouble is the tax and n.i. take is not big enough to fund this and many other things so we are told (tuition fees being another example). So what you end up with is the individual paying for everything themselves (eventually to private companies brought in to take on the tasks - you just watch) and there is no state support. This is pure Tory ideology whereby income tax is reduced to paying for a runt of services you really can't privatise and the individual funds everything else.
However has your overall tax bill gone down due to the facts students now have to pay £9K a year in fees? No and neither has your local postman's but the "postman paying tax for the students education" was how this was sold. So we end up with being taxed pretty much as we were or taxed even more (VAT 20%, income tax thresholds left to be eroded by inflation) and we end up paying for what was once state provided ourselves anyway!
Pure Tory ideology.
So, as you say, tax has not gone down but the tax take is insufficient to pay for all these things. Indeed, with the ageing demographic profile in 20 - 30 years time the tax take will be nowhere near enough to remotely provide care. Are you advocating increasing taxes across the board? Personally, I favour basic rate income tax of c. 30% plus NI at, say, 10%. We need a grown up debate. Seems to me three main options (perhaps in combination):
1. Go the Swedish, etc route and increase taxes on everyone (especially the so called squeezed middle) to fund good state care.
2. People have to pay themselves - which will inevitably be paid for by employers - who will then prefer the State to take the burden (as is starting to happen in the USA).
3. Encourage married women not to work. We have a ridiculous situation whereby women pay people (usually less able than themselves) to look after their own children and are also no longer avaiable to look after ageing parents. This to me is the most sensible approach to take in any civilised society.
