Yes, the government is hopeless but really, it’s the people that are the problem…
“…According to special questions included in the latest Newspoll, Australians are overwhelmingly in favour of cutting spending to bring the budget back to surplus (even Greens voters).
YET when asked whether “welfare spending” should be cut to do so, 61 per cent of the 1700 surveyed said no, including Coalition voters. Only 30 per cent said yes.
Social security and welfare, which includes the smorgasbord of family payments, childcare subsidies, and age and disability support payments is expected to balloon from $158.6 billion this financial year to $191bn by 2020. The biggest among these is the Age Pension — more than $45bn a year already. And the emerging National Disability Insurance Scheme will easily edge out family tax benefits A and B for second place within a few years.
The cash welfare bill will swell from 35 per cent to 37.5 per cent of total spending by 2020. The government spends more on welfare than health and education combined (23.5 per cent of the total). All up, almost 21 per cent growth has been pencilled in over four years, many multiples faster than any respectable prediction about growth in wages, taxes or neediness.
Up to 60 per cent of Australian households were not net income taxpayers in 2015, the latest year of data, after welfare benefits were netted out, according to recent KPMG analysis. Even including estimates for different households’ GST payments, about half still weren’t taxpayers, according to further study.
Since 2012 households in the middle of the income distribution have received more in cash welfare than they paid in income tax and GST….”
FULL COLUMN BELOW
“…Perhaps questions about the composition of the federal budget should be part of the government’s revamped citizenship test. Forget English competency; having more Australians aware of the country’s fiscal pressure points might lead to better policy.
According to special questions included in the latest Newspoll, Australians are overwhelmingly in favour of cutting spending to bring the budget back to surplus (even Greens voters). Yet when asked whether “welfare spending” should be cut to do so, 61 per cent of the 1700 surveyed said no, including Coalition voters. Only 30 per cent said yes.
Clearly, people must either be ignorant of the budget or want to see spending slashed on health, education and defence, the other big areas of federal government expenditure. That seems unlikely.
Questions for new citizens could include: is cash welfare spending growing faster than other expenses over the next four years? Savvy potential immigrants would emphatically tick the box labelled “yes”. In fact, social security and welfare, which includes the smorgasbord of family payments, childcare subsidies, and age and disability support payments is expected to balloon from $158.6 billion this financial year to $191bn by 2020. The biggest among these is the Age Pension — more than $45bn a year already. And the emerging National Disability Insurance Scheme will easily edge out family tax benefits A and B for second place within a few years.
The cash welfare bill will swell from 35 per cent to 37.5 per cent of total spending by 2020. The government spends more on welfare than health and education combined (23.5 per cent of the total). All up, almost 21 per cent growth has been pencilled in over four years, many multiples faster than any respectable prediction about growth in wages, taxes or neediness.
For bonus points, immigrants might be asked what share of Australian households are net taxpayers. If they ticked the “45-55 per cent” range, they wouldn’t be far wrong. The welfare torrent has intensified against a backdrop of anemic wage growth, sapping the share of Australian households that pay tax in net terms.
Up to 60 per cent of Australian households were not net income taxpayers in 2015, the latest year of data, after welfare benefits were netted out, according to recent KPMG analysis. Even including estimates for different households’ GST payments, about half still weren’t taxpayers, according to further study.
“In a society where the demographic trend is going the wrong way from a government receipts perspective, this trend in tax/transfer payments is simply unsustainable,” said Brendan Rynne, chief economist at KPMG. Since 2012 households in the middle of the income distribution have received more in cash welfare than they paid in income tax and GST, he found.
Other questions could be: are there more or fewer than 70 welfare payments available in Australia? The correct answer is more, as the Abbott government’s largely ignored McClure review of welfare found in 2014. Has any government met its budget targets in the past decade? No.
Questions like these would help improve understanding of Australia’s fiscal problems, potentially leading to more sensible voting. Perhaps the government should extend the principle and consider barring people from voting unless they have a basic grasp of the budget. John Stuart Mill, 19th-century father of Liberalism, was in favour of this. “Other things besides reading, writing, and arithmetic could be made necessary (for voting): some knowledge of the conformation of the Earth, its natural and political divisions, the elements of general history, and of the history and institutions of their own country, could be required from all electors,” he wrote in 1861…” Citizenship seekers could count on fiscal foresight