Bonfire of vanities

It never ceases to amaze me, both about Labour and socialists in general, in their inability to get their heads around whose money they were actually playing with. It's like dealing with demented toddlers in a sweet shop who are prepared to gorge themselves until sick without realising the consequences to those who have to pay for the gluttony and waste.
They have the keywords down pat though, fairness, equality, social justice, poverty etc. Yet never do they realise that those of us who earn in the real world (not the public sector) do not like the idea of the state picking their pockets to pay for these concepts.

Times.

Half a million of the poorest families will be denied free school meals by deep cuts in welfare spending.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, indicated yesterday that some departments would lose up to 20 per cent of their budgets when he laid the ground for a four-year austerity programme to last the whole Parliament.

Even social security spending will be included when every Cabinet minister will have to go before a panel of colleagues to justify every pound they spend. Mr Osborne said that the task ahead represented “the great national challenge of our generation” and that after years of waste, debt and irresponsibility it was time to rethink how government spent its money.

As he was announcing the spending review, which will cover the four years from next April, details of early cuts began to emerge. 

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said that he was scrapping plans by Ed Balls, his predecessor, to extend free school meals from next term to 500,000 of the very lowest paid.

The decision will cost families earning less than £307 a week about £600 a year, equivalent to a penny rise in their income tax for each child.

Mr Gove said that he had to make the savings to protect the overall schools budget. But his move was criticised by poverty campaigners who said that it raised questions about the Government’s commitment to reducing child poverty and protecting the poorest from cuts.

Children whose parents are on income support or jobseeker’s allowance will continue to be eligible.

Mr Gove said that Mr Balls had underestimated the costs. It would cost £125 million initially, rather than the projected £85 million, rising to £350 million in 2012-13 rather than the £215 million for which Mr Balls had planned.

The Child Poverty Action Group said that it was “stunned” by the move, which would have lifted 50,000 children out of poverty at a stroke.

OK, first off the measure hadn't been introduced, so what the poorest families haven't had they'll never miss, bit like PAYE.
Second, this was a bribe pure and simple to Labours core support, a vote for us and we'll give you more money in your pocket, they knew fine well that those who had to pay for this weren't going to vote for them anyway.
Third, should Labour not get elected, cutting this measure would get them the headlines of "cruel Tories" that they wanted, so essentially a win, win scenario for them.
Fourth, the Child Poverty Action Group is a fake charity, funded by the government taxpayer to lobby the government on behalf of the government and stuffed with bleeding heart Labour placemen. Closing them down would save the government at least half a million in grants, possibly up to £2.5 million.
Fifth, Children whose parents are on income support or jobseeker’s allowance will continue to be eligible. So those who are at the bottom of the food chain will still get this support.

Now where Labour got it wrong was by creating a system so complex that even where they were picking the pockets of the taxpayers (child tax credits) to give to the poor (If you could count on someone earning over £45k being poor) that they had a massive bureaucracy to administer it, this cost money that really could have gone to the poor and made the taxpayer better off by not having to fund it anyway. So great was Labours need for money that even those on minimum wage paid tax only to get some back if they had kids via a convoluted bureaucratic nightmarish system. There are far easier ways to do it including raising the tax allowances of working parents with children. But again Labour were deluded enough to see the public sector as part of the economy, rather than a drain on it, besides all those public sectors were likely to vote labour otherwise it might be like turkeys voting for Christmas.

So it's no good the Labourists and socialists screaming about cuts, they created the mess we're in where the government ended up paying out a third more than it was taking in. They can scream about the evil Tories, but they were responsible or rather irresponsible enough to believe that the money would never run out. It's time for the UK to pay the piper and the only way we can do that now is to cut away some of the flesh rather than trim the fat, in some cases the limb will have to be removed to pay our debts. This is what Labour and the socialists forgot, there's always a price to be paid for spending what isn't yours.