AIBU to think if you're a net negative in tax you shouldn't be able to vote?

...hmm just thought bstard and farage actually rhyme!

The problem is OP is that whilst some may agree with you, your points are simple answers to complex and moral issues.
You say that dependents should still be cared for receive treatment etc. However would there even be safeguards to ensure this wouldn't be possible to change, or would those who could vote be able to vote against it? Thereby driving people into poverty and with no health care it doesn't take a great leap of imagination to envisage what sort of society we would live in.

Anyway to keep things light, and to make my point nothing is clearer than this comedy sketch by rik mayall as the new statesman.

Probably not, but I have a funny feeling the OP will be voting Reform at the next election.

Haven’t rtft.

I’d be interested to know how on earth the notion of net contribution could be fairly measured. You can’t really measure it until the day you die can you?

I don’t know what you’d make of me. Pay hardly any tax at the moment but for 17 years worked my arse off helping to prop up a crumbling underfunded criminal justice system by working for peanuts? Is that contributing enough? What about others who don’t pay much tax because they’re low paid but that’s because they do a very worthwhile job in an underfunded sector? Or unpaid carers, saving the state a fortune.

So many questions. Such a stupid idea. Nigel, is that you?

As I understood it, the argument went like this:

A child born into privilege is more likely to end up in a position to pay more tax and therefore earn the vote than a child who is born into poverty. It is unfair that an accident of birth should be a determining factor in a person’s ability to have a say in society.

The counter argument to this was about the meaning of the word “luck,” at one point saying that children are not LEGO blocks and can’t be swapped around.

My argument is that theoretically they can be swapped, and the accident of birth/fortune/chance/luck of the draw can therefore be proven to be a determining factor in whether they have the right to vote. And that is unfair.

The argument is not about whether that privilege has been worked for by previous generations, it’s about whether or not it should play a part in determining whether someone has the capacity later in life to earn the vote.

I know it’s from Hamlet.

You know it’s from Hamlet.

Op didn’t say it was the Hamlet speech used in Withnail & I, he just said it was from Withnail & I.

So until he clarified later, it was possible that he didn’t know the play it came from. And given the dodgy use of AI throughout this thread I’m not being very generous with my assumptions

I did. In depth. Read my post.

I couldn't agree more, but in today's world it's an approach that is a luxury people can't afford. I don't just mean the cost of doing a degree, I mean the cost of living.

As I said before, I was fortunate enough to be of age at a time when you could afford rent and even get a mortgage on a low wage without government support. It's going to matter more and more what you study, in order to get a foot on the ladder of an ever-shrinking job market.

It might be a terribly sad fact, but it is a fact. And whilst this discussion with the OP might be theoretical, the truth is he is right in that the choices we make are the ultimate determinants, and this very aspect that you and I are discussing now shows how much closer we are to this way of thinking, that value in today's society is fiscal, rather than, for want of a better word, spiritual.

Lovely as it is to study what you love, as I know, it doesn't pay the bills. And if we want fewer of the 'drains' as OP so eloquently put it, teaching Shakespeare to children whose best shot of employment which pays enough to have a roof over their head will be in STEM fields is hard to justify, when there's so much other stuff they need to know about that we didn't have to learn just to get the most basic employment.

The right to vote isn’t payment for taxes, it’s protection against being ruled without consent.
Once you make political rights conditional on wealth or productivity, democracy stops being equal and starts being owned.

Posts like yours genuinely make me lose faith in the human race.
Such selfishness.

I think access to university (even for degrees that many people sneer at these days like English Literature, Marketing etc) is important for the 'working classes' if you want to use that term. University is not just about training people for jobs, especially for kids from poorer backgrounds. It opens doors to different ways of thinking, different people, perspectives and different expectations, and that really can break cycles of disadvantage. Turning education into nothing more than short-term job training misses the wider value of creativity, curiosity and learning how to think properly. Digital skills matter, but jobs change all the time but the need to adapt and understand the world doesn’t. If we only value education by a league table of 'worthy subjects', we end up shrinking opportunities, not expanding them.

So glad I'll be dead by then in so many ways, but the bonus would have been to see all the 'you should have worked harder in a field that will make you more money' find out why it's not always that simple...

Just waiting til AI takes all the jobs and 3 people do all the earning. You'll have a shit.

I still think this thread ignores the bigger picture of how who the government is and what they do affects all of us. The focus is on what they spend on direct support, rather than the decisions they make which aren't about fiscal and practical benefits in the immediacy.

This thread rathers proves that some net contributors have no greater understanding of government than anybody else. That they still only think about the direct effect on themselves, financially.

I've not really had a response to my point about foreign policy from the OP and why the importance of us all not just having a vote, but being aware of the issues beyond our tax bill.

If only a small percentage of people can vote, I want that percentage of people to be held responsible for any action taken by their elected government which results in reduced national security. If there was to be a draft (unlikely in modern warfare, but this entire thread is a theoretical discussion) those not considered to have 'earned' their vote would still have to go and fight. If there were air strikes, the bombs aren't going to discriminate between deserving and undeserving residents.

We get a vote because we live here. What the government does affects us beyond our own pockets. Whilst the modern, populist governments may use our own pockets, our greed or our need, to influence us, we really do need to look past that when we vote. And from where I'm sitting, net contributors are no more likely to do that than any other voter.

This is, in reality, a narrow, parochial thread, which is, when you boil down all the words, 'I don't want to pay for anyone else'. Which is fine, and understandable. But it's such a narrow view of what our vote is all about.

If you vote for a dictator on the basis that he's going to either cut your taxes or up your benefits, it's not going to be just you who will be affected by the brutal regime. Therefore, it can't just be you, and people in the same financial boat as you, who make that decision. Of course, as we know, everyone having the vote doesn't mean that decision won't still be made, but the point is that everyone has at least the chance to change the outcome of a decision that will affect their lives.

If @SBGM247 really wants a vote-earning system, then it should be based not on earnings but on understanding beyond the fiscal needs/wants of the individual. If we're in fantasy theory land, then in actual fact, you should have to prove you have read and understood the manifesto of each party standing for election. In total. Not just the bits that directly affect your wage packet or lack of it.

Yes, I know. OP's question to me was, 'why can't those on minimum wage be net contributors?'. I gave him the obvious answer first, then moved to the nuance of what he might have actually meant by that.

I do agree about the teaching to a degree, mostly because I adored Shakespeare and would have loved to do Latin. But educating according to employment necessity will result in a lot more of this, I'm afraid, as employment becomes more and more specialised in the digital age.

Educating the working classes has always, to a degree, been about employment. And, to be honest, to follow OP's model, Shakespeare doesn't get you in the net contributor bracket. They've now got to fit in all the tech stuff they need to know to get, increasingly, even the most basic employment. If you can't work an iPad, that's going to be a much bigger problem for employers than if you couldn't quote Shakespeare.

Sadly, the English Literature degree I got decades ago is now on the list of 'do you want fries with that?' degrees, and in the modern world of the world and it's mother getting degrees, I have to concur. Shakespeare won't get you in OP's all important 'net contributor' bracket today. Knowing the ins and outs of a duck's arse about digital manipulation, will.

So, much as I agree with you in my heart, I can see we do need to educate children for the world THEY will be living and working in.

The OP is loving all the attention from women is what I see here.

The bit he quoted is from Hamlet. I did it for A level. I haven't seen Withnail and I (I don't think - possible seen a bit) but whether that's where the words are from or not they are from Hamlet (a famous speech). And I bet he/she does know because they went to a boarding grammar school (down thread somewhere, reply to me).

I don't agree with a return to more votes for the better educated, wealthier. Always a bad idea.

I was not lucky enough to win a scholarship to a grammar school. I had a speech impediment which led to remedial reading classes until my mother kicked up a fuss since I was already a good reader, but, of course, I mis-pronounced some words because of the impediment. This is one reason I get very annoyed with teachers who say that children with speech impediments can't learn phonics, of course they bloody can, you just have to accept the odd mispronunciation and guide correct speech. Anyway, the result of this was that I ended in the B stream (I changed school and of course the remedial reading was in the report from previous school) which did not follow the 11+ curriculum. Even so I narrowly failed and had I been a boy I would have passed (higher pass mark for girls in my LEA) and both my brothers went to grammar school.

Well, yes. This is why we pay taxes - and we have agreed to do this so that everyone may benefit, that there be a level(ish) playing field and equality of opportunity. There won't necessarily be equality of outcome, of course. There is also the problem of the crab bucket, which teachers who witter on about 'relevant' curricula enable. Teach them Latin, say I (who never had the opportunity. Ditto grammar - thought to be old fashioned for my generation.)