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

[SBGM247]

Trigger warning: strong political views / rant incoming. A shrinking group is expected to fund an expanding system. The system increasingly penalises work while rewarding dependency.

AIBU to think the modern state is a parasite, and that only those who are a net positive in taxes should be able to vote, rather than forcing working people to support an ever-growing dependent class?

Currently ~21% of working-age adults are economically inactive, meaning not working and not actively seeking work (according to a research brief from the House of Commons). Democracy is broken if voters can vote themselves benefits paid for by others. Representation should be weighted toward those with demonstrable responsibility and contribution.

Currently, the state is extractive and hollowing out the middle class. As anyone that has the eyes to see and ears to hear will know, dependency is rising and and demographics are changing at a rate not seen outside of wartime.

To address this simply, I think if you’re on benefits you should lose the right to vote until you’re a net positive. That would restore equilibrium.

This is essentially Chesterton’s test of a society.

"An honest man falls in love with an honest woman. He wishes, therefore, to marry her, to be the father of her children, to secure her and himself. All systems of government should be tested by whether he can do this.

If any system, feudal, servile, or barbaric, does in fact give him enough land, work, or security that he can do it, there is the essence of liberty and justice.

If any system, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green, Reform, or technocratic, does in fact give him wages so low and conditions so insecure that he cannot do it, there is the essence of tyranny and shame."

If the state could stop turning people into dependents that working people have to pay for, that would be great. The state is bloated, fixated on wealth redistribution rather than wealth creation, and actively working against the people it is meant to represent. It is incapable of creating the conditions for wealth, stability, and independence. This is managed decline, and we need some adults in the room who have read a book. AIBU?

Jesus wept, if you think this is an academic discussion, typically academic discussions involve: facts, data, reasoning, nuance and above all humility. Until someone has bothered to even understand some basics of how society works there’s honestly not much point engaging with this nonsense, it would honestly take too long, better to at least make them aware at the very least of the most obvious flaws in their understanding in the hope they will read something unbiased in the future.

Fair play, OP, you really committed to the bit here. 213 direct replies at time of writing - impressive, honestly. Well done you, you clever little thing 👏

It's essentially a return to the 1700s and 1800s and as you correctly point out that didn't turn out too well for the likes of Marie Antoinette or Tsar Nicholas.

As an alternative we could discuss how the risk of a financial collapse could result in an authoritarian regime where no one gets to vote. Except that I think too many posters would find such an academic (even though it's more likely than OPs suggestion) too upsetting or triggering.

Where’s your evidence for the assertion in your second paragraph? In the past majorities (in modern democracies) have often voted for parties that promise fiscal responsibility, not always but sometimes depending of course on their perception of societal needs at the time. Obviously democracy is flawed, but there is no better system that we know of, best to try to hone democracy to improve it, rather then throwing it out in favor of uber-menches :)

Mnet let some of the truly outrageous CEM threads run
this
is extremely mild in comparison

The result is our huge and unaffordable welfare state

I'm always inwardly complaining about 'fuck and run' type OPs, so gotta give credit where it's due.

I think you’ll find huge welfare states tend to have more frequently occurred in non-democracies.

Im talking about the U.K.
because that’s the country the thread is about.

If anyone wants the evidence requested in the pp we are seeing it right now

The UK does not have a huge welfare state, and if you think it does I suggest you look at the balance sheets of some other countries for comparison.

Not at all. How did you reach that conclusion?

What I suggest is that when you start a "theoretical discussion" about policy, or indeed anything, you should be mindful of the effect it may have on others and act accordingly in your initial and subsequent posts. If you genuinely want a discussion, what you certainly should not do is dismiss other people's concerns out of hand by telling them it's not real and was just for the 'lolz'.

https://www.statista.com/chart/24050/social-spending-by-country/

https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/social-benefit-recipients-socr-database.html

The fundamental issue in the future is the aging population and how to support it, not sure I’d refer to that as a huge welfare state, unless you are suggesting old people should be left to slide into poverty?

Smashing, a system where only the rich can vote.

Belting idea that, can't see a single solitary problem.

I propose that the right to vote is dependent on a cognitive test and a basic intelligence test. Too stupid, fuck off no vote for you.

Ok
Unaffordable then

pp wanted evidence of the problem. Im stating it. It’s all around us

Pp wanted evidence of the effect on how people vote

We see it all around us
The majority of People vote for what affects them the most.

People in the majority have never voted for a reduced welfare state
So
The evidence is all around us

The amusing thing is in such regimes, where the rich get richer and the poorer get poorer, people (maybe the OP, who knows ?) who start rich can very quickly end up not rich and out of the voting game.

Obviously the solution to this worry is to ensure that once the system is up and running the rich never lose their votes while the poor never gain any.

We could call it the "Bright and Beautiful" constitution, after the propaganda chant that originally promoted it.

From Chat GPT just because my tea break in only 5 mins.

Here’s an objective assessment of the claim from the Equality Trust press release that “the poorest 10% of households paid on average 48% of their income in tax in 2022/23, while the richest 10% paid just 39%”:
✅ What the numbers actually show
The data quoted in the press release is drawn from the ONS Effects of Taxes and Benefits on UK Household Income and appears to be accurate as a summary of that dataset:

• Poorest 10% households: ~48% of their income goes to tax
• Richest 10% households: ~39% of their income goes to tax

So, at face value, it is correct that the poorest decile pays a higher share of their income in total taxes than the richest decile. 📌 But — why this can be misleading The intuition that “the rich pay higher taxes” usually refers to progressivity of the tax system — i.e., those with greater ability to pay should, in principle, pay a larger proportion of their income in tax. That is broadly true for income tax, but the headline numbers from the press release include all taxes (direct + indirect):

1. Different taxes matter differently
2. Income tax and National Insurance: progressive — higher earners pay more as a share of income.
3. Indirect taxes like VAT and council tax: these hit everyone but take a larger share of income from poorer households because they spend a higher proportion of their income on consumption and property-related taxes.
4. Distribution versus incidence
5. The richest 10% make up a large share of total income tax receipts (around 60% of income tax revenue comes from the top 10% of earners).
6. But when you divide total taxes paid by household income, consumption and other flat-rate taxes shrink the average rate for the top decile relative to a naïve comparison.
7. Households have very different income compositions
8. For example, pensioner or zero-income households may show bizarre ratios if benefits are excluded or counted differently. Economists sometimes adjust for this when comparing tax burden.
9. The Resolution Foundation has previously shown that figures like “the poorest 1% pay 265% of their income in tax” are statistical artefacts due to how income is measured and how tax liabilities are treated.
10. Tax plus benefits versus just taxes
11. If you include benefits (like universal credit, tax credits, state pensions), the net share of income that the poorest keep increases significantly, and the distributional picture changes quite dramatically.

📊 So what’s going on? A simple way to think about it InterpretationWhat it shows Total taxes as % of income (headline figure) Poorest pay a higher share than richest (because of VAT and council tax). Income tax progressivity Still progressive — higher earners pay more by share of income tax. Net taxes (taxes minus benefits) The poorest usually end up with more benefits than taxes, while richest are net contributors. 🧠 Key economic insight A tax system can be progressive in rates (income tax) yet still be regressive in total burden once you include indirect taxes that take a larger slice of a poorer household’s budget. This is especially true:

• VAT and consumption taxes — poorer households spend a bigger share of income on consumption.
• Council tax — largely unrelated to income and based on property values that don’t track people’s ability to pay.

Economists use measures like the Suits index to formally assess whether a tax system is progressive or regressive. ✅ Bottom line

• The Equality Trust’s headline figures are factually based on ONS data.
• But taken alone, they don’t prove the UK’s tax system is regressive overall, because they mix very different kinds of taxes and ignore benefits.
• Most expert analyses find income tax itself is progressively structured, but indirect taxes and council tax can make the overall system appear regressive at the bottom end when measured as total tax as a % of income.

TLDR

The above stats only look at tax paid, not benefits received. Once you factor in benefits such as Universal Credit, housing support, pensions and child benefit, the poorest households usually get more back from the state than they pay in tax, while higher earners are net contributors.

So the headline makes it sound like the poor are being crushed by the tax system, but that’s misleading. What it really shows is that everyday taxes like VAT and council tax are clumsy and hit low incomes harder, not that poorer households end up worse off overall. In reality, benefits significantly offset those taxes, and higher earners still fund most of the system.

Do you think that national debt at £2.9 trillion and an annual deficit of £153 billion where annual debt interest payments are £126 billion (compared to UK education budget of £119 billion) is sustainable?

Of course you may argue that the public didn't vote for this, but every action by every Government has contributed to it, whether it was £70 billion spent on furlough by the Conservatives or £9 billion in public sector pay increases by Labour.

Or alternatively try being a candidate having a policy of cutting pensioner benefits and let's see if you get elected.

Or alternatively try being a candidate having a policy of cutting pensioner benefits and let's see if you get elected.

Most of that was covered in the article I think - my point was more that around half of what the state spends on benefits comes straight back to their coffers anyway.

People kind of forget about indirect taxation so it's an interesting point to highlight.

The only people who don’t see the size and direction of travel of the welfare state as excessive or problematic tend to be those who don’t contribute to it (to the op's original point) or those who assume their lifestyle choices should be underwritten by other taxpayers. Higher earners are not the same as the rich.

If your standards are low enough, almost anything looks 'ok' when you compare it to the worst possible alternative.

Which is caused by 3 major factors, all caused deliberately by incompetent - or all too competent, working against the people - British political elites trying deliberately to bring back the Victorian empire of near-slaves:

1. ageing population (ok not deliberately caused but deliberately ignored)
2. privatization, causing public money to be handed out hand over fist to private shareholderS. Of which a large proportion is caused by buy to let and landlords, forcing the impoverishment of working people, destroying home ownership in favour of private tenancies, empowering rising rents and therefore rising housing benefit paid direct to private landlords
3. reduced wages not paying the cost of living and therefore requiring top ups from public money, again allowing more money for shareholders.

Start taxing the rich, make them pay for what they’ve taken out and the world they’ve created.

Plough the money into reversing privatization.

That’s simply not true, do you think Margaret Thatcher increased the welfare state, honestly what you’re saying is obviously untrue.

Yeah, Thatcher took a hammer to it.

Some people don’t realise how much high tax rate payers pay in tax. I saw a payslip recently, 50K in tax over the last year! Seriously looking to move to the middle east!