We're crippled by welfare and waste

[nero_bolt]

MAYBE it's too late already. But our slackers' paradise is in strife if we don't end this Age of Entitlement.    

We can measure that strife with figures: by the May Budget, the Gillard Government will have blown another $75 billion of borrowed money.

That's on top of the $90 billion debt left by the Rudd government.

Or take these figures: more than six million Australians now live off government benefits or salaries, with only another six million Australians working full-time in the private sector to pay for them.

Or measure our entitlement mentality with anecdotes, like those in this week's Lowy Institute report on the blowout in demand for government help from Australians abroad.

There was the couple who wanted frequent-flyer points for being evacuated from Cairo on a government-chartered rescue flight.

There was the person who rang the the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's emergency service to ask: "Could DFAT feed my dogs while I'm away?"

Or measure the Age of Entitlement by the handouts offered by both sides of politics.

Labor, the most reckless, is shovelling out $500 million a year for a "Schoolkids Bonus" that recipients can blow on holidays, booze or a new TV, if they prefer, and it now promises an $8 billion-a-year disability scheme it can't pay for.

Meanwhile, the Coalition promises a salary substitute of up to $75,000 over six months to working women having a baby.

This cannot go on. This is the road to Greece or Cyprus.

We are spending money we don't have and don't look like earning for a long time. And we're too often spending it on welfare and waste, including billions on pointless green schemes.

Deloitte Access Economics now predicts that without cutting spending, federal and state deficits will rise by 2050 to $70 billion a year in today's money.

The fundamental problem, notes the Centre for Independent Studies, is that governments keep spending big, even though they're no longer getting the big rises in income we took for granted before the global financial crisis.

Yes, the Government laughs off "road to Greece" warnings. And, true, we are a long way from European levels of debt.

It is also true we don't yet match Europe's worst for welfarism. France spends close to 30 per cent of GDP on public social expenditure, Australia 16 per cent.

So why the urgency to cut the entitlement culture?

First, because we're still propped up by incredibly high prices for our minerals, which in turn depend on the still-high growth of China. We're riding our luck.

And second, we're at that dangerous pivot between too small to worry about and too big to change.

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate last year, faced that same pivot in the US and rightly predicted too many people could now be on the teat to let him slim the government cash cow.

"All right, there are 47 per cent who are with (President Barack Obama), who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it," he said in a secretly taped speech. " I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility ... "

We are almost at that ratio beyond which no politician dares talk of saving and cutting.

ASK the Liberals. Last year, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey, in a speech in London, did talk of Western nations needing to end this Age of Entitlement. Huge spending on welfare and big drops in income had left many countries with unsustainable debt, Hockey said, but when asked what cuts he'd make back home, he stalled: "Australia hasn't got the enormous challenge that other countries have."

Hockey has since been overruled by colleagues when he wanted to back one of the Government's rare welfare cuts, to the baby bonus.

Even when Opposition Leader Tony Abbott decided to announce one saving of his own - scrapping the Schoolkids Bonus - a media adviser warned in an email: "I think it's really a bad idea."

Sure enough, the Government ran a scare, warning Abbott's cut would leave "western Sydney families ... $15,000 worse off".

These games must stop. These handouts are with borrowed money and can finance idleness.

A country with our healthcare cannot be so feeble that 819,000 of us are deemed too sick to work.

We cannot afford to be so picky or work-unready that 530,000 of us are on the dole.

We cannot all be so unfrugal or tired at 65 (or 60 for women) that more than two million of us are on the age pension.

No. We are not Greece. But we can't miss this chance to make sure we never will be.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/were-crippled-by-welfare-and-easte/story-e6frfifx-1226607943523 

[izabsmiling]

MAYBE it's too late already. But our slackers' paradise is in strife if we don't end this Age of Entitlement.  

 and it now promises an $8 billion-a-year disability scheme it can't pay for.

How many disabled 'slackers' do you believe we have Nero Wolf ?

[izabsmiling]

We're Crippled 

choice wording 

[the_great_she_elephant]

Cut all welfare payments, put 'em all in workhouses ,starve them ,let them get sick and/or die .....much cheaper .

If it's tackled that way though ...will there be enough tax payers left then or for the future ?

Did anyone watch 'Call The Midwife?' on Sunday. Bearing in mind the stories are all based on fact, it's a real insight into how 'welfare' was handled back in the (not so) 'Good Old Days. the workhouse mentioned in Sunday's story closed in 1937 - the year Mr Elephant was born.:O

[freakiness]

Nero, you're always welcome to move to one of the more remarkable, successful, better economically managed countries than Australia and leave us in peace.

[izabsmiling]

Hi TGSE, I did and it was confronting enough on TV...I'm reading the chapter's on Mrs Jenkins in the book Call the Midwife atm.The details in the book are much more heartbreaking.She was around 30 when she and her children went in there as the last resort (after her youngest baby died) and the others were starving and one developing 'the cough' which killed her husband.She had sold everything she owned to try to keep them going,including their blankets and clothing AND her hair ....and her TEETH :_|

[freakiness]

PS. Please take Bolt with you

[not_an_eloi]

crippled, you say, nero.   

get this into you

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-29/fitch-reaffirms-australias-aaa-rating/4601344

Fitch reaffirms Australia's AAA credit rating
Updated 3 hours 49 minutes ago

US agency Fitch has reaffirmed Australia's coveted AAA credit rating, but warned about the impact of a slowdown in the mining sector.

The credit rating reflects Australia's ability to repay foreign debt and is used to compare different countries.

Fitch says Australia has remained one of the strongest performing economies in the AAA universe since the global financial crisis.

It says a robust mining sector and demand for natural resources would continue to support Australia's economy.

Treasurer Wayne Swan says the AAA rating puts Australia in a select group of countries.

"Australia is one of eight countries to have a AAA rating from the three major global ratings agencies," he said.

"Why is all that important? Because the way some people are carrying on at the moment you'd swear that we were at the other end of the spectrum.

"It's important because what they are judging here is the underlying strength of the Australian economy.

"Low public debt, strong public finances, low unemployment, lower interest rates strong investment pipeline."

Fitch upgraded Australia to AAA for the first time in 2011.

However, the ratings agency warned about the mining slowdown and possible bank exposures in Australia.

"Ultimately, the key longer-term challenge facing Australia is how the economy will respond when mining sector investment peaks and begins to turn down," Fitch said in a statement.

"It is still too early to judge how the economy will perform once this stage is reached."

It also highlighted the potential for a downturn in asset prices or housing values.

"Large-scale problems in the banking sector, whether driven by a significant deterioration in asset quality (eg a sharp downturn in the housing market) or by a loss of access to international wholesale funding."

Fitch also noted the Government's plan to bring the budget back to surplus had been abandoned due to the strong Australian dollar and volatile commodity prices.

But the agency took the view that the process of fiscal consolidation has slowed rather than reversed.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has declined to comment.

[i-need-a-martini]

What freaky said.

[lakeland27]

 australia's triple AAA is hardly crippling . plenty of other nations would be grateful for such a disability. Imagine if countries were children. ''Ms gillard i have somehing to tell you'' ''australia is the healthiest nation i've seen on paper ''

but bolthead and akerman and abbott say its a basket case.. there's 3 blokes who's heads need examining.  liars or stupid or both?. i think both.

[crystal-gems]

The perpetual whiners don't realise how lucky they are to live in Australia.

Oz is heaven on a stick compared to other western nations.