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Written by Tom Clougherty
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Tuesday, 27 November 2007 |
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 In his speech to the CBI yesterday, Gordon Brown signalled that he was planning to put welfare reform at the heart of political fightback, announcing an overhaul of the system to "move claimants from passive recipients of welfare benefit to active job and skill seekers." JobCentre Plus functions look set to be contracted out to the private sector and claimants may be compelled to take jobs that are offered to them or face losing their benefits.
Good. The Conservatives have already seized on this topic, and I am glad to see the government following suit. As our recent report Working Welfare makes clear , this is one of the key challenges facing the country. Aside from being a drain on the economy, worklessness breeds inter-generational dependency, health problems and crime and among other social ills. By actively deterring people from entering work, the welfare state is hurting the very people it was designed to help. Radical change is long overdue.
My worry, however, is that the government may not be willing to think radically enough, given their historic ties to the welfare state and their attachment to redistribution and 'social justice'. After all, Frank Field MP was once asked by Tony Blair to 'think the unthinkable' on welfare reform and was subsequently fought by Brown every step of the way.
Has the Prime Minister undergone a Damascene conversion? Is he prepared to cut taxes for low-income workers, simplify the tax credits scheme and make work absolutely central to the benefits system? Well, perhaps... but I won't be holding my breath.
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Written by Dr Fred Hansen
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Wednesday, 14 November 2007 |
 Following the failure of George W Bush’s social reform – labeled the "ownership society" – there is one question that conservatives cannot escape in the run up to the presidential election. Is there any prospect of reclaiming limited government again? An interesting debate getting started.
Military spending is not the problem. Despite Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending accounts for only 20 percent of the federal budget or 4 percent of GDP – lower than during Jimmy Carter's presidency. Driving big government has been the 65 percent of the federal budget (or 13.1 percent of GDP) spent in 2003 for "human resources" - the budget category including Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Veterans programs etc.
At least overall spending has slightly improved: from 22.2 percent of GDP in 1981 to 20.3 percent now. But despite two decades of the conservative think tanks churning out concepts for shrinking the welfare state, federal government is bigger and more influential now than in1980, when Reagan famously said: "government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem".
Unfortunately it seems much harder for conservatives to dismantle the welfare state than for 'liberals' to build it. As the New Republic stated, celebrating the 10th anniversary of a rare conservative victory, the abolishing in 1996 of the Aid the Families with Dependant Children:
Welfare bashing has lost its political resonance…(and) welfare reform has expanded the constituency for activist government. Democrats now have more political room to fight Republican austerity – and to propose, in its place, a stronger safety net.
If American conservatives where not able to use the prosperous past decade in power as an opportunity to reduce the public sector, what can they possibly achieve in the more difficult years of retiring baby-boomers that lay ahead? |
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Written by Tom Clougherty
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Sunday, 04 November 2007 |
The ASI's latest report, Working Welfare, is released today. It has already been sent to the government in reponse to their consultation paper 'In work, better off: next steps to full employment', which was published in July.
The problem with welfare policy in this country is governments of
various complexions, lacking any coherent vision of what welfare should
aim to achieve, have merely shuffled the rules and tweaked a system
that is socially toxic to many of its recipients. Tinkering has been
the order of the day.
However, as our report's author, Katharine Hirst, points out:
"Gradual change may appear to be a step in the right direction, but can
also create confusion and contradictory pressures rather than improving
things. The time has come for a radical overhaul of the benefits
system." The purpose of Working Welfare is to show a clear vision of
what welfare should be like in future, and to set out the stages by
which it can be taken there.
Inspired by the successful American reforms of the 1990s, our
latest proposals make work central to welfare: all working age people
not meeting national disability criteria would face immediate work
requirements, backed up by tough sanctions. No work would mean no
benefits, and any absence from mandated work without good cause would
trigger a pro rata reduction in payments.
The proposals in Working Welfare would also revolutionize
the delivery of welfare. Responsibility for its provision and
administration would be devolved to local agencies, which would be paid
according to results. Agencies would be rewarded for getting people
into work for a set period of time, ensuring an ongoing and
personalized service for jobseekers.
The report also advocates raising the personal income tax
allowance to £12,000, to tackle high effective marginal tax rates for
those trying to enter the workforce, and to make life easier for those
with low incomes.
Read the whole report here.
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