Thatcherisms

What can we blame on Thatcher today?

How about this?

This is Thatcherism, in all its cold, stiff, failed ugliness. And the problem there is that the Thatcher experiment has pretty much failed. Four decades after she took power, 38% of working-age households now take more from the state in benefits, health and education than they pay back in taxes. Wealth in Britain is so concentrated that the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies believes “inheritance is probably the most crucial factor in determining a person’s overall wealth since Victorian times”.

Yes, we do have an overly generous welfare system that is milked by many a scrounger in the name of human rights. Something certainly needs to be done about it, but blaming Thatcher is not the answer

We've had thirteen years of Labour Government between now and Thatcher, so if there was a problem to be fixed, you would think they would have done it in that time. In fact, the problems we now face with the welfare state, were caused by Labour, long after Thatcher left office

The above paragraph has been spun to suggest the following:

• People cannot earn enough money because the rich keep it all
• Benefits are necessary to ensure those being squeezed by the rich get their fair share
• We're not taking enough taxes from the rich to cover this outlay
• This is Thatchers fault

The reality is the following:

• Thatcher tried to create a low tax society where people could keep more of their money
• Labour created an atmosphere of entitlement which led to all and sundry turning to the welfare state rather than earning for themselves
• Labour tax the poor rather than allowing them to keep what they earn
• The richest 1% pay more taxes than the other 99%

The only way to correct the wibble in the above paragraph is to bring the time line forward to 1997 and state that the Blairism experiment, in it's cold stiff, failed ugliness, has failed

Nothing this guy is talking about has anything remotely to do with Thatcher

(On a slightly off topic note, I've tried to argue for lower taxes for lower earners many a time. It's surprising how difficult it is to get the progressives to agree that, that would be a good thing. It's as though they are not interested in allowing low earners to keep more of what they earn, only in making sure that the 'rich' are forced to pay more. 'More', not having an upper limit. It's not caring about people with less money, it's simply hatred of people with more money than them)