Why is the coalition making a public spectacle of picking on the poor?

[ttosca]

We're living in truly Orwellian times when the British state removes all avenues for the individual to hold it to account

We all know that the government's plan to fix "broken Britain" is predicated on blaming our national scapegoats: the undeserving poor. Sitting at ease behind closed curtains, fecklessly "breeding" life that they haven't the means to feed, we are told, the poor are the real scourges of a society in which the richest 10% own 40% of our country's wealth. They do not deserve the same rights that we might expect, were we ever to find ourselves in their position, because, truth be told, we are better people than those awful scroungers. And just when you thought such treatment of our poorest citizens couldn't get any worse, the coalition is proving itself willing to plumb new depths.

Leaked internal documents from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have shown that it is tabling a proposal to charge people who challenge a decision to strip them of their benefits. There is no mention of refunds for those who manage to win their appeals. That's right, some of the poorest in our society could be forced to put up and shut up, even when a government department is at fault.

In the last year, nearly a million people had their benefits stopped and of those who appealed against the decision at independent tribunals, 58% won their case. It leaves me wondering about the efficacy of such a manoeuvre. This is a department that gets its decisions more often wrong than right. Why does it have the mettle to even attempt such a policy? I guess you have to admire the pure chutzpah of this public-school cabal.

Aphorisms often appear too trite to tell us anything meaningful, yet this is not the case with the assertion attributed to Mahatma Gandhi that "the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members". The Tories have transformed what should be our national shame into a public spectacle in which we should all revel in kicking those on the rung below us; it's easier that way to forget about what is happening above you.

Rather than question why parts of our stake in the bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group could be sold at a £230m loss, we are supposed to champion draconian measures such as cuts to disability living allowance. The DWP's own figures show that only 0.5% of those claiming incapacity benefit do so fraudulently, yet the company it placed in charge of carrying out its work capability assessments, Atos Healthcare, judged a third of claimants to be fit to work. These are the sorts of people who stand to lose if the government charges them for appealing against a process that is skewed against them.

The policy seems like a kite-flying exercise to gauge just how far we are willing to go when it comes to making the most vulnerable pay for the City's excesses. If, as I hope and pray, the measure is deemed too extreme and is shelved, Iain Duncan Smith's department will still come out smelling of roses. To the Tory heartland it continues its incessant drumbeat of being "tough" in "lean" times. To the rest of us, it hopes to appear measured and able to accept criticism.

We should distrust any government that is willing to go where this policy would take it. To call it Orwellian would be a sober assessment of facts rather than an emotive exaggeration. When the state removes all avenues for the individual to hold it to account in respect of how it treats them, we are living in hard times indeed.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/21/coalition-spectacle-picking-on-the-poor

ttosca…..while I can understand for YOU to write your claptrap, that YOU need to get up in the morning believing that Labour’s profligacy under Brown unnecessarily CAUSED the huge Budget Deficit the Coalition inherited, but you cannot ignore the facts on the previous page.

For a start, why are you comparing our debt/GDP/expenditure to OTHER European countries, when their economies were structured differently to ours?

How many European countries had spend £billions hiring one million plus more State workers from 1997 and a quangocracy that rose several fold to £170 billion, THAT RELIED on the ANNUAL £60-100 billion (direct and indirect taxes) from the now virtually unregulated City’s profits?

UK GDP was therefore an unsustainable government spending and debt (government, company and consumer) house of cards that was going flatline at the first major economic recession.

But when the ECONOMIC recession is preceded by a FINANCIAL recession, as our country REVENUES collapsed (in the City and many private sector jobs) our FIXED COSTS built up Prior to 2008 not only remained, they increased as they do in any recession via the Automatic Economic Stabilisers.
www.economicshelp.org/blog/glossary/automatic-stabilisers/

So lets keep this simple and I’ve tried to find a source that is fair ( overly in my view) and try wasting your breath defending Labour by challenging the following link – with graphs and charts.

www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/

“During the years 2001-2007, there was a sharp rise in government spending. In real terms, government spending increased from just over £400bn (2009 prices) to £618bn in 2008-09.

As a % of GDP Government spending also increased from 36% of GDP in 2000 to 46% of GDP by the end of 2008-09

This increase in government spending contributed to budget deficits and higher public sector debt.

After a short period of budget surplus (due to spending restraint) in the late 1990s, the UK experienced a budget deficit of 2-3% of GDP between 2002-2007.

By historical standards, this is relatively low. It still met the Maastricht criteria of keeping budget deficits to less than 3% of GDP.
However, the budget situation was also improved by impressive tax revenues from the housing and financial boom. When the credit crunch hit, tax revenues rapidly dwindled causing a marked deterioration in public finances.”

• If the government had entered the credit crunch with a budget surplus and lower public sector debt, the government would have had much more room to pursue a real and sustained economic stimulus. However, because there was already a deficit, the recession caused a rise in the cyclical deficit. The deficit of 2009-10 of 11% of GDP was primarily due to the deterioration in public finances, only a small part of this deficit was due to expansionary fiscal policy (VAT cut)

• A great failure of spending decisions of the 2000s, was to allow budget deficits during rapid economic expansion. A budget deficit of 3% of GDP may have sounded relatively low. But, in hindsight, this exaggerated the underlying deficit because tax revenues were boosted by tax revenues which evaporated during the credit crunch.

So NOW tell this board why you disagree with me and the above link, stating the bleedin’ obvious UNLESS suffering from some ideological sickness that has to blame the Conservatives for everything..

Amen.