Our blue powers-that-be are talking about getting rid of National Insurance as swing-voter catcher for the next election (whenever that might be). NI underpins many things, including the NHS, and is an ideal “taxation reduction” target of the sort you’re talking about.
Now there’s something about only a small percentage of NI going to the NHS, but who’s behind that exactly? Oh. Blue people again.
And then they say “See! See how rubbish the NHS is! It cannot work! Go private! What’s that? You don’t have money? Get a better job! Go private! It’s easy! This has nothing to do with ideology and we certainly haven’t been actively making the NHS worse! Go private! We have shares in private! Oops shouldn’t have said that! Vote for us!”
(And if they do get rid of NI, expect an unforeseen increase in income tax for middle earners a year or two after that happens to cover “unexpected burdens on the public purse” or some jargon like that.)
NI is just another tax that goes into the total pot, albeit one that is not progressive and adds to the cost of employment. I’d be happy with it being scrapped and it all going on income tax, perhaps with a scaled employer contribution component. How about the employer contributes a scaled percentage for all employees over the median income for the company?
NI is just another tax that goes into the total pot
It’s not supposed to be that way though. It has only become that way through many tiny changes so that now it’s indistinguishable from “yet another income tax”.
The entire point of its existence was to fund the welfare state, including the NHS, and the government we’ve had most of in the last 50 years absolutely despises welfare. Unless it’s for people who already have too much money and businesses “too big to fail” anyway.
Our blue powers-that-be are talking about getting rid of National Insurance as swing-voter catcher for the next election (whenever that might be). NI underpins many things, including the NHS, and is an ideal “taxation reduction” target of the sort you’re talking about.
Now there’s something about only a small percentage of NI going to the NHS, but who’s behind that exactly? Oh. Blue people again.
And then they say “See! See how rubbish the NHS is! It cannot work! Go private! What’s that? You don’t have money? Get a better job! Go private! It’s easy! This has nothing to do with ideology and we certainly haven’t been actively making the NHS worse! Go private! We have shares in private! Oops shouldn’t have said that! Vote for us!”
(And if they do get rid of NI, expect an unforeseen increase in income tax for middle earners a year or two after that happens to cover “unexpected burdens on the public purse” or some jargon like that.)
NI is just another tax that goes into the total pot, albeit one that is not progressive and adds to the cost of employment. I’d be happy with it being scrapped and it all going on income tax, perhaps with a scaled employer contribution component. How about the employer contributes a scaled percentage for all employees over the median income for the company?
It’s not supposed to be that way though. It has only become that way through many tiny changes so that now it’s indistinguishable from “yet another income tax”.
The entire point of its existence was to fund the welfare state, including the NHS, and the government we’ve had most of in the last 50 years absolutely despises welfare. Unless it’s for people who already have too much money and businesses “too big to fail” anyway.