jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson) (12/20/84)
I can't understand all this furor about the universality of social programs.
People seem to be getting more in an uproar about this issue than about
abortion, capital punishment and nuclear disarmament, but I don't see what
the big deal is. It seems a waste for the government to take money from
my right pocket and then put some of it back into my left pocket, especially
since some of it gets burned on the way to administer the program.
I also can't understand the NDP and the Liberals, protectors of the poor and
the average Canadian, are campaigning so adamantly to protect the rich when the
rich probably don't care anyway. The money can be used to benefit the poor
and average, or to reduce the deficit which would benefit everybody. Sometimes
I think the opposition parties can be replaced by a machine that automatically
disagrees with everything the governing party says, no matter how good an idea
it is, and there would be no change at all in our parliamentary proceedings.
--
Jeff Richardson, DCIEM, Toronto (416) 635-2073
{linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd}!utcsrgv!dciem!jeff
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!dciem!jeffmmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (12/21/84)
>I can't understand all this furor about the universality of social programs. >People seem to be getting more in an uproar about this issue than about >abortion, capital punishment and nuclear disarmament, but I don't see what >the big deal is. It seems a waste for the government to take money from >my right pocket and then put some of it back into my left pocket, especially >since some of it gets burned on the way to administer the program. Hardly MORE of an uproar ... The main argument for universality seems to me to be administrative simplicity. The rich don't care whether they get these little bits of money or not, but if it costs more to separate them out than it would to let them have the money, I'd prefer to let them keep it. I think that the amount of money involved is so trivial compared to the deficit they are trying to reduce that the whole thing is being played completely for symbolic politics. Brian is doing his usual smoke-and-mirrors trick, and the others are trying to get the public to cough. If a new government gets the reputation early on of stumbling, it's easier to bring them down later. If they are initially seen as firm and confident, that reputation will stick to them in the face of their inevitable later mistakes (for a while, anyway). The opposition wants to make sure that Joe Clark will continue to lose his luggage, whether it has anything to do with the way the Government works or not. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmt
robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson) (12/22/84)
*
I was under the impression that one of the main arguments for
universality was that it did not necessitate the use of means tests
which critics believe to be cruel and demeaning. The other main
argument is that doing away with universality would be a first
step to gutting those programs and perhaps even scrapping them
altogether.
The way the opposition parties are talking one would tend to think
that all social programs are universal. However, this is hardly
the case. The Guaranteed Income Supplement and Federal student
loans are but two non-universal programs. This leads me to wonder
if perhaps the main question should be why should program X be
universal rather than why shouldn't it be; i.e. are there
overwhelming reasons for retaining the status quo. The best reason
I've heard so far for keeping universality is that reiterated
by Martin Taylor: if it's going to cost the same amount or more
to administer a non-universal program then it makes sense to
leave things as they are. I, for one, tend to think that if
this is indeed true it could very well be a reflection on
the inefficiencies of the civil service and perhaps a little
more digging is in order to determine why it would cost so
much to screen applicants. Considering that one fifth of
the civil servants are overpaid as it is I don't think that
I'm asking too much.
J.B. Robinsonhenry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (12/29/84)
> I was under the impression that one of the main arguments for > universality was that it did not necessitate the use of means tests > which critics believe to be cruel and demeaning. This is indeed a major argument, but (as many people have pointed out) it doesn't hold water: the information in your income tax return is probably ample input for most "does he really need this?" decisions. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
dave@lsuc.UUCP (01/02/85)
Much better than a means test would be to modify the income
tax system to tax back the entire baby bonus, in the hands of
the high-earning spouse (that is: do not include the family allowance
into income; instead, include it into a separate "refundable family
allowance" calculation, which is 100% repayable to the government
if income is over a certain level).
A side advantage of this would be to avoid taking the monthly
cheques away from the women who actually need them for spending
money because their husbands refuse to give them money; yet the
husband would be the one repaying it at the end of the year.
(Sorry to sound sexist, but unfortunately there are a lot of
families like that - the husbands gamble, drink or squirrel away
their paychecks and the wives make do on what they can, including
the baby bonus.)
Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Toronto
--
{utzoo pesnta nrcaero utcs}!lsuc!dave
{allegra decvax ihnp4 linus}!utcsrgv!lsuc!davelaura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (01/04/85)
Re: the women who need their paychecks because their husbands are louses... Is it really in our interests to make such horrible marriages in some way more tolerable for the mistreated women, or is it preferable to make such situations less tolerable? It depends on whether you think there is something worth preserving in such relationships -- many would rather increase the divorce rate to get such women away from such situations, but the difficulty is that the woman is likely to have to make the first step in this direction. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) (01/08/85)
In article <4863@utzoo.UUCP> laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: ||Is it really in our interests to make such horrible marriages in some ||way more tolerable for the mistreated women, or is it preferable to ||make such situations less tolerable? I dunno, Laura. It's hard to explain, but there are many many women whose husbands treat them badly (in various senses of the word), yet who still "love" those husbands and want to stay with them. Why? Financial security? Emotional security? Psychological hangups? Combinations of all of these and more. (Look at the Karen Mitchell (?) case - the woman who was jailed for refusing to testify against the husband who beat her.) Should we be telling these women they're better off splitting? Perhaps. Should we be taking steps to make their lives so miserable that they do leave their husbands? I don't think so. Dave Sherman -- {utzoo pesnta nrcaero utcs}!lsuc!dave {allegra decvax ihnp4 linus}!utcsrgv!lsuc!dave
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (01/09/85)
Theoretically, at any rate, the taxes that people pay are for things which the majority of people would pay for voluntarily. (I know that it may not work out this way, but that is what it is in theory.) When you look at the money sent to Ethiopia, one can see that Canadians don't like to see other people starving and improperly clothed and housed. I don't see that abolishing universal social programs, such as Mother's allowance, is really going to cause great starvation among Canadians -- before that happens the same good people whom we all know will want to spend *their own* money to alleviate suffering. So I don't think that it is fair of you to talk of cutting mother's allowance as: taking steps to make their lives so miserable that they do leave their husbands because it is not the good Canadians who are generously paying money to these people who are responsible for the bad situation. I don't want to see people starve, and I contribute to organisations which provide food and clothing to the truly destitute. However, i *do* mind paying money to people who are living in relatively wealthy households. I don't mind helping the poor, but this business of transferring money from the middle class to the middle class really gets my goat. There are only two arguments I have ever seen to justify this transfer. The first is that it is cheaper to administer to all the people -- but I just don't buy this one. It is very easy to define a ``poverty level'' and then, at income tax time, send out checks to make people who did not reach this level match the level. All of thse forms have to be looked at anyway. Actually, I would rather have people look to their local churches, synagogues, temples and non-religious charitable organisations than to the government for relief, but that ia another issue. The other argument is that it is necessary to transfer money from the middle class to other parts of the middle class because some (many? the arguments vary) women are married to people ``of means'' who are, nonetheless, not supporting them properly. Now, assuming that these families are divorced, the courts (again theoretically) do a good job making sure that alimony payments are made. Therefore there *does* appear to be a method to make middle class wage earners support their families. I can see why, in past times, when divorce was universally considered both a scandal and a sin why people might think that there was something holy about marriage which shoudl be preserved, even if it meant transferring money from middle class kind families into middle class families headed by creeps who don't treat their familes adequately. But today, as divorce has become accepted (well, mostly accepted) is there any value that the tax payers are getting out of this? The good people who still believe that marriage is holy are perfectly free to contribute money to a religious (or non-religious, for that matter) charity, to further these aims. The rest of us may well question what our money is being spent for. In giving money to women who are in miserable situations because they are in miserable situations we may be in some way condoning their behaviour. If, instead, we could guarantee that women leaving such situations would have their income improved by such actions (either through alimony or through welfare) then noone could see support of evils through our attempt to alleviate suffering. I don't know. If I am going to have to keep shelling out money for others through taxation anyway, (assume that the louse won't pay alimony and that the woman has no skills and is on welfare, which gets paid for by my taxes) I would much rather spend it on welfare for divorced and abandoned mothers than on keeping them in a state of suffering. (Actually, I would rather spend it on daycare for the children so that the woman can get a job and eventually not need my money at all, but again this is another issue.) Are the mental and emotional problems of a woman which keeps her in a terrible marriage in some way more worth subsidising than the mental or emotional problems that keeps thousands of people smoking, or alcoholics, or spending beyond their means or what have you? If so, why? Laura Creighton utzoo!laura