You are right, Dawndonna, but putting aside righteous squawking, why is that? (I am not saying it is good or bad, I am talking about realities, here). It is for the same reason that taxes on the poor (like the lottery) are very effective: they are a very very large group of the population, and the sums involved are huge. Sorry.
Another commentary:
But in choosing to focus so strongly on the need for welfare reform, the Chancellor put his finger on the nub of the problem, not just for Britain, but for virtually all advanced economies.
It?s not just that much welfare spending has become bloated, unfair and sometimes outright corrupt, it is also that it is no longer economically affordable. Osborne couched his case in highly political terms, as you might expect after the latest British Social Attitudes survey.
This showed a high degree of public support for further cuts in welfare spending. Where once the Tories were regarded as cruel and heartless for wanting to slash benefits, it now seems that they can?t be tough enough. Politically, Osborne is therefore pushing at an open door when he says this is not just about saving money ? it?s about fairness and enterprise.
How can we justify the incomes of those out of work rising faster than the incomes of those in work, he asks, or giving flats to young people who have never worked when working people twice their age still have to live with their parents because they cannot afford a separate home?
More emotively still, he asked how it was possible to justify a system where people in work have to consider the costs of having another child, while those who are out of work don?t. By raising these questions, Osborne gives voice to a strongly populist message, but he also speaks to an underlying, economic imperative ? advanced economies are long past the stage of being able to afford such largesse.
In his speech, Osborne was aiming only at the easy political targets of entitlement spending ? for want of a better term, the ?social scroungers?, or those who choose welfare over work. The savings that can be made here are certainly not to be sneezed at. Looking at those areas of welfare spending which grew most strongly under the last government, they were things like housing benefit and other forms of income support.
Yet they are dwarfed by healthcare and pensions spending, and it is these entitlements which pose the biggest challenge for the future.
As it happens, Britain is rather better placed than many of its European peers in this regard. On pensions spending, the age of entitlement is already being raised, and will in future continue to rise in line with life expectancy. The per capita cost of the pensions promise is thereby capped.
The same is not true of health and long-term care, the costs of which will grow rapidly as society ages. Relatively favourable demographics make these costs less of a problem for Britain than they are for much of the rest of Europe.
Recent projections aired by Fabio Pammolli, professor of economics at the IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, show quite shocking levels of exposure. If there wasn?t already enough to worry about in Europe?s fiscal meltdown, these forecasts point to destruction of the very foundations of the European social market economy. Taking into account the expected decrease in fertility and mortality rates, the burden on active workers of healthcare and pensions spending is expected to grow over the next 20 years to 63.5pc of GDP per capita in Italy, 61.6pc in France, and 53.3pc in Germany.
Favourable demographics mean that by comparison, the projected UK burden is relatively small at just 38.7pc. Yet it is still quite high enough.
As is only too apparent, much of Europe is incapable of supporting its present pensions and healthcare promise. Herb Stein, one time economic adviser to President Nixon, famously remarked that if something cannot go on for ever, it will stop.
In Europe, stopping is going to make the present outbreak of economic, social and political instability over deficit reduction look like a stroll in the park. We are only in the very early stages of Europe?s wider fiscal crisis. There is still much worse to come, regardless of whether the euro survives or not.
Kids, we are stuffed. It isn't about 'should' or 'fair' any more. It's about reality.