Really interesting comprehensive taxonomy with clearly-explained distinctions and some entertaining microhumour!
A couple of typos:
* "rail fair" -> "rail fare"
* The sentence beginning "Given that all programmes or benefits are ultimately funded out of general taxation..." seems incomplete, like it has a long introductory clause and no main clause.
* "In Poor Get More (or pay less) schemes, some benefit or service is given only to a subgroup of people at the top of the income" - presumably "top" should be "bottom", and "income" should be "income distribution" or something?
We do actually have hurry pay more for healthcare, it's just the providers are private sector (but it's quite a porous boundary, eg I've been to a private hospital for NHS treatment when they were buying extra capacity from them, and private providers famously dump their emergencies and failure back onto the NHS)
You'll be pleased to know that even the standard passport choice is surprisingly quick. I had mine renewed last December, submitted application digitally on Monday and got my new passport on Friday.
I considered an expedited choice but that involved taking the train to Croydon and an in-person interview. No thanks
There are also public spending schemes where the service is free at the point of use - the prime example being the NHS - where rationing is imposed by a queue. Some pay to go private which is a version of "those in a hurry pay more".
Interesting analysis. For the first two, it's worth looking at how and why a combination of UBI and progressive taxation doesn't work. For pensioners, you have something a little like that, with the (new) state pension being UBI-like, and covering the income tax personal allowance, so any private pension income plus earned income is taxed at the appropriate marginal tax rate.
Over a tax year or two, it more or less works, but for working age people who don't get that baseline income, you want to provide some insurance/monitoring to insure against risks - so if people lose jobs for any reason, you want to try to get them back to work as quickly as possible - and the tax system is slower than DWP on that. Some services need to be provided as they're needed, or things get worse (like potholes, or the police). Financial incentives not the only issue.
«However, the biggest disadvantage of universalism is that it is incredibly expensive [...] so with resources scarce, it is understandstandable that people seek approaches that target scarce resources more narrowly.»
It is unfortunate that our blogger here fall victim to malicious right-wing propaganda about "affordability" because nobody has been proposing to give a free Rolls-Royce to every family whether rich or poor, but to make the entitlement universal and take it back with taxation where it is deemed to be not needed. This has happened already with universal entitlements whether for services like schooling or cash like the state pension.
«The principle benefit of Poor Get More schemes is that the benefit is only given to those most in need»
The malicious right-wing propaganda of which our blogger is victim seems indeed based on the ridiculous assumption that taxation cannot be used as a tool to balance spending.
«making it significantly more affordable to the taxpayer than if delivered on a universal basis. It keeps the size of the state to a minimum, keeping it out of most people’s lives»
Actually giving a universal benefit and then taxing it away in case where it is deemed not needed means negligible intrusion of the state: for example schools and roads are simply available to everybody and paid for by taxes and nearly everybody pays taxes (whether direct or indirect).
If one wants to target a benefit to a group it is quite simple to tax it away for everybody else and does not mean any more intrusion than the ordinary taxation system which already exists. It is just some figure in, the same figure out, nothing complicated or intrusive.
The purpose of the malicious right-wing propaganda seems to me not to keep the state activity simpler or less intrusive but to ensure that some benefits are indeed not universal but are smaller than would be otherwise.
Consider the usual claim that good state pensions are unaffordable: it is simply an argument that many workers who cannot afford to save for a good pension privately should be very poor in old age on a very small state pension, because it is "unaffordable" for other taxpayers to pay insurance against themselves being very poor in old age.
The arguments I see against universalism seem to me to be always against their potential redistributive effect (including depriving vested private interests of profits lost to the much greater efficiency of public provision, as in the case of pensions).
«because it is "unaffordable" for other taxpayers to pay insurance against themselves being very poor in old age. The arguments I see against universalism seem to me to be always against their potential redistributive effect»
One of the great successes of malicious right-wing propaganda has been to fool many into believing that that *insurance* is redistributive so for example home fire insurance redistributes from deserving owners who do not burn down their houses to those who burn down their houses so fire insurance premiums are a redistributive tax on the former. :-)
Really interesting comprehensive taxonomy with clearly-explained distinctions and some entertaining microhumour!
A couple of typos:
* "rail fair" -> "rail fare"
* The sentence beginning "Given that all programmes or benefits are ultimately funded out of general taxation..." seems incomplete, like it has a long introductory clause and no main clause.
* "In Poor Get More (or pay less) schemes, some benefit or service is given only to a subgroup of people at the top of the income" - presumably "top" should be "bottom", and "income" should be "income distribution" or something?
We do actually have hurry pay more for healthcare, it's just the providers are private sector (but it's quite a porous boundary, eg I've been to a private hospital for NHS treatment when they were buying extra capacity from them, and private providers famously dump their emergencies and failure back onto the NHS)
You'll be pleased to know that even the standard passport choice is surprisingly quick. I had mine renewed last December, submitted application digitally on Monday and got my new passport on Friday.
I considered an expedited choice but that involved taking the train to Croydon and an in-person interview. No thanks
There are also public spending schemes where the service is free at the point of use - the prime example being the NHS - where rationing is imposed by a queue. Some pay to go private which is a version of "those in a hurry pay more".
Interesting analysis. For the first two, it's worth looking at how and why a combination of UBI and progressive taxation doesn't work. For pensioners, you have something a little like that, with the (new) state pension being UBI-like, and covering the income tax personal allowance, so any private pension income plus earned income is taxed at the appropriate marginal tax rate.
Over a tax year or two, it more or less works, but for working age people who don't get that baseline income, you want to provide some insurance/monitoring to insure against risks - so if people lose jobs for any reason, you want to try to get them back to work as quickly as possible - and the tax system is slower than DWP on that. Some services need to be provided as they're needed, or things get worse (like potholes, or the police). Financial incentives not the only issue.
«For the first two, it's worth looking at how and why a combination of UBI and progressive taxation doesn't work.»
But it works for schools, roads, child benefit, NHS, police, ...
«However, the biggest disadvantage of universalism is that it is incredibly expensive [...] so with resources scarce, it is understandstandable that people seek approaches that target scarce resources more narrowly.»
It is unfortunate that our blogger here fall victim to malicious right-wing propaganda about "affordability" because nobody has been proposing to give a free Rolls-Royce to every family whether rich or poor, but to make the entitlement universal and take it back with taxation where it is deemed to be not needed. This has happened already with universal entitlements whether for services like schooling or cash like the state pension.
«The principle benefit of Poor Get More schemes is that the benefit is only given to those most in need»
The malicious right-wing propaganda of which our blogger is victim seems indeed based on the ridiculous assumption that taxation cannot be used as a tool to balance spending.
«making it significantly more affordable to the taxpayer than if delivered on a universal basis. It keeps the size of the state to a minimum, keeping it out of most people’s lives»
Actually giving a universal benefit and then taxing it away in case where it is deemed not needed means negligible intrusion of the state: for example schools and roads are simply available to everybody and paid for by taxes and nearly everybody pays taxes (whether direct or indirect).
If one wants to target a benefit to a group it is quite simple to tax it away for everybody else and does not mean any more intrusion than the ordinary taxation system which already exists. It is just some figure in, the same figure out, nothing complicated or intrusive.
The purpose of the malicious right-wing propaganda seems to me not to keep the state activity simpler or less intrusive but to ensure that some benefits are indeed not universal but are smaller than would be otherwise.
Consider the usual claim that good state pensions are unaffordable: it is simply an argument that many workers who cannot afford to save for a good pension privately should be very poor in old age on a very small state pension, because it is "unaffordable" for other taxpayers to pay insurance against themselves being very poor in old age.
The arguments I see against universalism seem to me to be always against their potential redistributive effect (including depriving vested private interests of profits lost to the much greater efficiency of public provision, as in the case of pensions).
«because it is "unaffordable" for other taxpayers to pay insurance against themselves being very poor in old age. The arguments I see against universalism seem to me to be always against their potential redistributive effect»
One of the great successes of malicious right-wing propaganda has been to fool many into believing that that *insurance* is redistributive so for example home fire insurance redistributes from deserving owners who do not burn down their houses to those who burn down their houses so fire insurance premiums are a redistributive tax on the former. :-)