The welfare state is the biggest failure of Gordon Brown

The Daily Telegraph
Who said the following: „The development of the lower classes, in which people are excluded from basic social life and are often surrounded by poverty, black economy, crime and family instability, is moral and economic evil? Tony Blair said this in 1996 when, as opposition leader visited Singapore to examine the status of a responsible society in the country and attempt to convince the British that is serious about his promise to reform the welfare state.
To whom are these words? „The social breakdown in our most struggling communities creates favorable environment for crime. Family breakdown is so severe that many young people grow up without a trace of stability in his life and idea of family as a center of education. „This statement made in the shadow interior minister Chris Greyling on Tuesday in a speech that compared the social collapse in parts of Britain with recreated in the American television series Narkomrezha.

An ostrich in the sand

What happened over the past 13 years and that the next 13 will be better?
Theresa May, Conservative spokesman on social assistance, said data according to which millions of people of working age are dependent on state aid, no special incentive to seek work and operate a system that encourages helplessness. „Labor built the wall between workers and the unemployed and hoping that their failure will go unnoticed,“ she said. Analysis of the Tories hit right in the end, just like that of Blair in the 90’s. We know what is wrong and basically know what needs to be done. The big question is whether anyone has the political will to change things. If the Tories are determined to do so, you must learn from the biggest failure among Labor’s policies.
Blair’s mistake in 1997 was to entrust almost all control over social policy of the then finance minister Gordon Brown, who quickly set up a working group in the field of taxation and benefits. The aim was „to streamline and modernize the system so as to accomplish the tasks for working introduce incentives to reduce poverty and dependency on social assistance and strengthening of social and family life.“
Then social minister Harriet Harman said: „We are determined to fight the controversial statistics suggesting that every fifth family in the working age is unemployed. Work is the best form of support for these people. Will explore the tax and social system to act as an incentive to seek employment. Our goal is to remove barriers that keep people outside the labor market and aid. “
Brown was seen as a man in a class above the ordinary finance minister. His desire was to become a reformer like Lloyd George and his big idea was the tax credit. Brown was determined to impose these plans despite the very different style of work initiated in the social ministry of Frank Field, the then minister of social reform. On entering the Government Field was ready with a number of ideas – the annulment of the examination of the financial position, eliminate taxes for people with low wages and the creation of individual social funds, supplemented by savings plans, which includes contributions to the insurance institute or tax incentives . Field was not aware of the work in the finance ministry to their very exclusion.

Dancing with the system

„Learn about the measures of the press, then he tells. Brown and Blair talked about the elimination of child poverty in the next 20 years without ever ask me whether it is feasible. I was not allowed to meet the documentation. Gordon also works. The more severely restricting access to information, the less likely for someone to say: „Wait a minute, will you worked?“ Right this is the purpose of discussions with colleagues? Buyers to move things, and not to introduce more money into the hands of poor people, funds to be directed properly and to save costs on taxpayers. “
The problems were complicated by the endless and almost compulsive play on the system. Since 1999 the government in the face of the Treasury aside family credit, introduced a tax credit for working families and one for people with physical disabilities, then a tax credit for child care and such employment. The next step was to remove tax breaks for married couples, and then was introduced tax credits for children and one baby, then was removed the tax credit for working families, then those for the disabled and children. Was subsequently crossed out baby tax credit, introduced a tax credit for children, repealed the tax credit for employment and to introduce such workers.
In essence, the tax credit was social assistance, but attached to the inflexible tax system that could not respond adequately to the changing needs of the people. In combination with the usual IT fiasco it has become terribly expensive way to allocate money to the poor. Studies show that British taxpayers and people receive benefits from liras each spent less than nearly all other citizens in Europe. British welfare state is costly, inefficient, bureaucratic and does not bring expected results. Moreover, tax credits have changed people’s behavior, since the couples have to work much longer for aid at the same rate as single parents. What made this a message to young mothers at a time when the number of single parent families in Britain grew tearing?