Paying the price for the Age of Entitlement

[nero_bolt]

This story is behind a paywall. A very interesting read

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/paying-the-price-for-the-age-of-entitlement/story-e6frfhqf-1226594297706

IT'S like a secret. How could this country run out of money even in a mining boom?    

How come Deloitte Access Economics warns we're tracking for years of more federal Budget deficits?

Sure, we can blame Labor's big spending, up from $272 billion a year when it took office to $363 billion now.

But here's a specific problem even the Liberals avoid discussing: in a country of just 22 million Australians, more than four million are living on welfare.

Almost two million more are public servants - federal, state and local.

That's six million people living on some form of state income. Who is paying for them all?

Who must also pay for the handouts given even to working Australians from the Schoolkids Bonus to subsidising broadband?

Who must do all that, and still look after their own family?

Hear that crack? A back just broke.

Few politicians before an election dare speak about us catching the European disease - too many people living off too few - though shadow treasurer Joe Hockey did try last year to an audience in Europe.

As he later told the ABC: "With an ageing population and an entitlement system that has seen extraordinary largesse built up over the last 50 years . . . Western societies are going to have to make some very hard and unpopular decisions . . .

"The age of entitlement is coming to an end because governments are running out of money."

But pushed to say if he was referring to Australia and, if so, what he'd slash, Hockey took fright.

"I'm not going to get into cherry-picking Australian initiatives from London . . . Australia hasn't got the enormous challenge that other countries have."

Not yet. But soon.

A Centre for Independent Studies report last week noted spending by all governments grew on average more than 4 per cent a year (after inflation) for 40 years.

But government revenue in the past three years slowed to just 1 per cent and, if mineral prices fall or the economy stalls, we're in strife.

We must cut spending, and that means tackling the entitlement culture that has so many Australians, not all deserving or helpless, living off the sweat of others.

How can it be, when we need so many foreign workers, that 530,000 Australians are still on the dole? How can even more - 819,000 - be deemed too sick or disabled to work, and in need of a pension?

Are we so feeble?

Then there are the 2.2 million Australians who didn't save enough for their retirement and are on age pensions. Add another 350,000 students we pay to study full-time at universities.

There are only eight million of us in full-time work, and one in five are public servants.

So almost every Australian with a full-time job in the private sector pays for either a public servant or someone living on welfare.

For now, those workers still just outvote people with a big stake in keeping the Age of Entitlement going, but soon the entitled will outnumber those paying for them. Then the chance of reform will be as slim here as it is in Greece.

Best start cutting now.

[2012foolfool2012]

The education tax refund required that parents bought school related (although that was a loose definition of course) items, saved the receipts, and then submitted them with their tax return, in order to get a refund based on how much they spent.

The Skoolkid$ Bonus is a payment based on how many children of the appropriate age you have birthed and kept custody of. It goes to every parent, whether they bought education related items for their children or whether they handed that responsibility off to a charity. They could be a truant for all the payment cares. You still get it in your hot little hand.

All these payments should be removed and the same amount of money used to fund services for children and families. But that wouldn't keep the cog mouths shut and the votes coming so it will never happen.

But if you look at the countries with the best health and happiness indicators, they don't have high individual payments, they spend their money on creating excellent state services.

[*crikey*mate*]

nah, I just wrote it cos it seemed like a good thing to do......

Thinik about it - before you could claim $2,000 per kid (don't know figures sorry - just an example) and that was a tax deduction thus reducing your income by $2000 per kid - so 5 kids - a reduction of $10,ooo a year.

They still get the same money - ie you used to get half back - so it's easy to think there's no difference - cos you still do get the same amount in refund/bonus) but the taxable income has increased - so my questions from before stand.

[2012foolfool2012]

Before this new system, the expenses came off your taxable income - now they don't - so in theory, everyone's income just went up about $1000 for every kid they have, without them actually having any extra money in their pockets. Don't know exact figures, sorry - but you get the idea.

Is that correct ?

Is the Schoolkids Bonus payment taxed or used for income testing purposes?

No, the Schoolkids Bonus is not a taxable payment and it is not used or included as income for means testing purposes.

http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/benefits-payments/schoolkids-bonus/about-the-schoolkids-bonus#tax

And now, I'm nearly out of posts (isn't that wonderful for destroying informed, complex and in depth debate).

[the_hawk*]

So it looks like some at least have worked out things are not going as well as we have been told they are and we are in trouble.

Well gee wiz I have been saying this for a long time now and have been howled down with the we are going great the governments says so and they are so clever and know it all.

You don’t have to be that bright to see so many companies are down sizing and reducing staff, they just don’t do that when things are going great.

Look in your local shopping centers and see how few people are there and cast your memory buck just 5 years ago when they were packed with shoppers spending money.

Now the only thing I don’t agree with is the attack on the week venerable sick and the elderly.

As2012fool has already pointed out they were told that part of there taxes went to looking after the week venerable sick and the pensioners and if anything should happen to you your family would be looked after and you will be paid a pension when your old that would be a percentage of the minimum wage and have concessions on all governments charges as a reward for all the work they did to build this country.

Now they wish to blame these same people for the government’s poor performance, poor choices, lack of management and planning.

[2012foolfool2012]

Now they wish to blame these same people for the government’s poor performance, poor choices, lack of management and planning

Actually it's more that Australia is rapidly moving further into the territory of extreme capitalist policy and ideology and the old, the weak, the disabled, the misfits and children too young to work or consume (although with the explosion of Dora and other brands for babies their parents increasingly do so on their behalf) are not a cog of that machine. It's not poor choices or mismanagement, these people aren't simply floundering, they may be confused about whether they are Labor and whether Australia is a socialist place or a capitalist place, but they are in complete control, and the libs are certainly on a one way street to america the beautiful, with no looking back.

And you are all going to vote them into the position to do it.

[the_hawk*]

The worst thing we could do is follow the Americans, their people are very badly treated if your anything less than middle management  

[lurker17260]

Then there are the 2.2 million Australians who didn't save enough for their retirement and are on age pensions.

That's a bit harsh.  The only reason I don't have enough in my super was because of my broken work record.  I am of a generation (only mid 50s I might add) that didn't get payments for children (beyond the meagre Child Endowment) and didn't get subsidised child care, so if you didn't have an accommodating granny around you had to stop work if you had more than 1 child because it cost more than you could earn.  And there also wasn't the same access to maternity leave if you wanted it anyway.

I did go back to work when my youngest started school but by that time there had been a 10 year period when I made no super contributions.  I'm lucky in that my husbands super is enough for us but if I were single for whatever reason it would be a totally different story.

It wasn't that I didn't bother or was too stupid to save, it was that really I couldn't.

[izabsmiling]

Education Tax Refund 2011

http://www.ato.gov.au/content/00307696.htm

You must meet one of the four following conditions for each student for whom you want to claim the ETR.http://www.ato.gov.au/content/00307696.htm

Eligibility for the Schoolkids Bonus

To be eligible for the Schoolkids Bonus, you must either be a parent or carer who gets Family Tax Benefit Part A for a dependent child who is:

under 16 years of age and in primary or secondary educationbetween 16 years and turning 19 years of age in the calendar year and in full time secondary study, or exempt from full time study

The Schoolkids Bonus will also be paid to primary and secondary students if they are:

turning 19 years of age or younger in the calendar year, and

receiving:Youth Allowance

ABSTUDY (Living Allowance)

Disability Support Pension

Carer PaymentParenting Payment

Special Benefit,

oran Education Allowance from the Department of Veterans' Affairs

The Schoolkids Bonus will also be paid to secondary students receiving Pensioner Education Supplement if they are:

turning 19 years of age or younger in the calendar year, and

receiving:Disability Support PensionCarer PaymentParenting Payment, or

Special Benefit

Children in preschool are not eligible.

http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/schoolkids-bonus/eligibility-schoolkids-bonus

[bella_again]

Isn't it a close regurgitation of Joe Hockey's speech?

[bella_again]

Now they wish to blame these same people for the government’s poor performance, poor choices, lack of management and planning.

Of course they do, because our society lets them. It's far more popular to blame the vulnerable than tax companies who are draining this nations natural resources and paying next to nothing in tax, making billions in profit. Its far easier to cut welfare than cut the pay checks of the endless pollies who keep giving themselves payrises.

It's not about whats right, its about whats popular.  I think its a sad reflection on our society in some ways that we would rather distance ourselves from the needy so then as a nation and as individuals we have no responsibility.Of course its their fault for being born disabled or finding themselves in that situation until of course it happens to them....

Do we really want our nation heading Americas way where there thousands of homeless people on the streets living between buildings and stealing to survive? Is that what we call humane?  No that has to be a better answer than that.