More Beneficiaries than Tax Payers

More Beneficiaries than Tax Payers

Why is it that at a certain age (mine) there arises an increasing tendency to curmudgeonly-ness and an inclination to rant on about things that, that, --- that just aren't going in the right direction.

There are many problems that New Zealand doesn't have- because we're a small country a long way away with just 4million people who aren't clever or energetic enough to annoy anyone who matters.

But there's a problem we do have, which could push us into the failed state category within a few decades.

And it's now become self-reinforcing and will drive us inexorably down unless some circuit breaker operates or there's major external intervention.

Benjamin Franklin saw what was coming for us some 250 years ago when he observed that public charity (social welfare in modern parlance) was well intentioned but tended to become a lifestyle choice.

From the tentative beginnings of our welfare state in the 19th century, cradle to grave care has expanded until now just 25% of New Zealanders are nett taxpayers.  More than 70% of us now get more from the state than we give.  Approaching 400,000 working age New Zealanders depend on some form of benefit or state assistance for the major part of their income.  Consequently, any policy initiative that proposes more benefits gets majority support, and any initiative that increases tax for the 25% who are net producers also gets majority support.

It's all downhill from here.

It's a death spiral.

Our governments are fully cognisant of all this, but helpless to stop the rot- because if they attempted to, they would no longer be the government.

                                                                     Peter Lynn 2011

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