In some ways its as much a matter of trust and belief in the system as it is an issue of resource allocation.
A close family member of mine gets £53 pounds a week for caring for her grandmother full time. Cooks, cleans, cares for her. She knows people who are on the fiddle, who receive benefits they are not entitled to. One claiming housing benefit on properties they don't live in, but sub-let informally to get even more money because the landlord is their boyfriend. Another one who is on disability living allowance under the pretence of being severely depressed, despite the fact that she works part time in a pub for cash in hand, and there is nothing wrong with her.
Yeah, yeah...we've all got these kinds of stories, even here in the US, where it's a lot harder to cheat the system. Somehow people find a way.
This kind of thing causes resentment in society, it makes people feel their taxes are being wasted, at some level it detracts from the genuinely needy, and its just not right. The welfare system has to be defended against this, for its own moral health as much as anything else.
I get that billy-- no-one likes a cheat, especially working-class folks who are busting ass, paying into the very system, through their taxes, that finances such folks. But the fact is that it's the people at the top of the food-chain who are calling the shots, and that ruling-class is constantly manipulating the working-class to blame other members of their own class and the underclass for decisions that get made by the rulers. And that's the topic we're on-- the capitalist media whipping up public sentiment against the weakest members of society. This is just one example of it, I named others in my first post above (unions, public sector workers, etc.).
I'm not saying you don't need to reform your system, maybe you do, but as long as working-class people are so fucking easily manipulated against their own kind in your country, as long as both your major political parties are toeing the corporate line, reducing welfare abuse won't do a damn thing to help people who actually need the benefits. It's not like when AFDC got replaced with TANF here that Americans' SSI payments went up, and "welfare reform" in your country, given the current political situation, will not help anyone either.
And in case anyone got it twisted, I don't support the kind of rhetoric that The Sun and that type of paper spin over this.
We're not retards. Your disclaimer is unnecessary.
Serious reforms are needed.
Yes, your current socio-economic system and political superstructure needs to be overthrown.
Labour grossly overspent.
On the wars you support, yes they did.
Welfare so generous
You go fucking live on it then if it's so awesome. That's a damn lie.
You cannot be serious ?
She is serious. She's not an Uncle Tom suckin on the capitalist dick like you.
Topic: "Benefit Scroungers"