http://ldpblog.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/a-libertarian-welfare-policy/#comments

That isn’t true. Under 30/30 there are significantly lower EMTRs (30%) and no churning. No taxpayer receives welfare and no welfare recipient pays tax.

Regarding TPI, I honestly believe that private charity would be able to cover it. There are billions of dollars in private charity and not that many people in dire need.

The vaste majority of current DSP (disability support payment) recipients complain of bad backs and depression… and while some of that is probably true we have seen a direct inverse correlation between lower standard dole recipients and higher DSP recipients (because the requirements are lower and payments higher). The system is being rorted.

I think TPI (and single mothers) are groups that need individual attention, which can best be provided by decentralised and community-based groups, like private charities. The social euntrepreneurs network is a good example. The money is already available. If the private sector already has a solution we shouldn’t be inventing a problem for the government to solve.

If pragmatism requires that we spend something on TPI & single mothers then I suggest we keep control of the situation decentralised to private charity or decentralised levels of government and provide matched funds or targetted assistence. I strongly disagree with bastardising 30/30 for the sake of a media-friendly disability policy. No blanket TPI or single mother payments, no means-tested top-ups, no special tax offsets.

On a point of principle I agree with Jason that there should not be a child subsidy… but even the CIS disagrees with us there. My higher-tax-threshold-for-parents policy aligns closely with the CIS suggestions for child subsidies (except I would make it lower @ $2000 instead of their suggested $3000).

Don’t worry, I was merely off on jolly hols, I wasn’t avoiding your wrath, which was like a fist of suet, only twice as soggy:)

I am glad to see that you reverted to the proper term “smartarse” after initially using the American vulgarism “smartass.”

The interesting thing is that we agree on most points. Despite your egregious punctuation and syntax, you are a man of good sense (BTW sense is never common, it is always very upper class).

You say we are here dealing with philosophy. I majored in that dismal discipline back in my days at Sydney University, so I am not totally unaware of its charms.

I am in broad agreement with the philosophy behind the LDP tax-welfare policy, as I believe that the exponential growth in the provision of welfare has been one of the biggest causes of the social ills we now face. One only has to read the work of Theodore Dalrymple or James Bartholemew to see that the left’s addiction to welfare and statism have caused the growth of a frighteningly amoral, rootless and shiftless underclass. And the only real way to stop this development is to remove the teat upon which it sucks. This doesn’t just mean reforming welfare, but enforcing the criminal law with much more gusto.

From what I can see on a brief reading, the 30/30 policy will not lead to any vast re-write of the tax legilsaltion rather it is an adjustment of the rates and threshhold. The proposed deduction for capital losses is also worthwhile, in that it ensures that the tax law is symetrical. However, all the wonderful complex provisions will remain, so we tax lawyers can continue to revel in thin cap, value shifting and, dare I say it, consolidation. I have a friend who gets his jollies over transfer pricing, but he has gone over to the dark side and works for chartered accountants.

Why many of us are interested in replacing the traditional welfare system with 30/30? In my humble understanding, because the current system creates such a huge marginal tax rate for unemployed and partially employed, that they have no incentive or sometimes have disincentive to seek work. This in turn creates welfare dependency, poverty traps, underclass and all the related crime problems. I don’t have any figures, and although these may actually exist, this sounds logical enough to me.

Your point about the silliness of drug prohibition is well made, though. Stuffs the courts all the time with people who are essentially harmless.

Now I am going to have to go to bed. If I come back in the morning and find swearing, abuse, thread derailment or sundry other crud, crap and corruption, you won’t just be dealing with an angry skeptic. You’ll be dealing with an angry, flu-full skeptic. And I am the world’s worst convalescent patient.

Put them in the workplace, and they not only make themselves sicker, but buggerize around whoever it is they’re working for.”

That would be the case now. But its not going to be the case if we rig a sellers market for labour.

Its true that not all these people ought to be working full time.

But its going to be easier to sort things out if we have nearly all of these people in at least part-time work.

This all gets a bit easier if Total really does mean total.

I mean Christopher Reeves directed a TV show from that chair but generally speaking I would say if most people had his injuries that would mean total.

However you see that women that got a string of gold medals in the handicapped olympics…

Well thats not Total.

So for starters we ought to get our terminology right.

Because there isn’t going to be much problem sorting out a pension for total incapacity if its total that we mean.

Not that thats necessarily the best answer and surely not in the longer run.

But when we say total thats what we ought to mean.

Presumably because everyone can afford to be too stoned to leave the house.

I shall go looking for some figures and return.

Now when we say TOTALLY we ought to mean TOTALLY.

Not someone with bad eyesight. Or one arm. Or one leg. Or in a wheelchair but with two good arms.

Or suffering from bi–polar disorder. Or depression or anything thats not going to rule out some form of paid work.

Now just you stop talking nonsense.