Income levels - welfare meet reality?

[drsmith]

i think we have to break it down in that the politics of this are just plain nasty. It will be a major effort to just stop paying welfare to those on avg + incomes as we currently do.

I think that has to come first so that we continue to have the capacity to provide a welfare safety net.

Once that's achieve, then the tricky issue of high EMTRs can be tackled. I honestly don't believe they can be done at the same time, unless we moved into a double rainbow and unicorns for all kind of world where Government and opposition constructively work together.

IMHO, it'll take a recession to get a reduction in middle / upper class welfare.

In the British example you gave above last night, I note that while EMTR's were still very high, they did manage to reduce them as part of their income support rationalisation process.

With regard to politics there does have to be a level of pragmatism, but why should we give in to nastiness or even those on the political spectrum that don't see high EMTR's as a problem in itself ?