An interesting article I wrote on the reality of the current system.

NAS15840 said:

I don't really see how the concept that everyone should contribute, rather expecting "someone else" to pay for the things they want has anything do to with a badly managed program to maintain a supply of iron for the war.

Railings for scrap was a propaganda piece intended to increase public morale. The railings were dumped in the Medway estuary but the government knew that if people were prepared to make personal sacrifices for the common good then Britain would stand a greater chance of winning the war.

Your argument that everyone needs to contibute is effectively the same concept of personal sacrifices for the common good.

The current tax system is reliant on an ever decreasing group of people paying for everyone else, the reason we "can't afford" a German or Scandanavian level of state expenditure is because people aren't willing pay their levels of taxation. Either services stay as they are everyone pays in more. The idea that "the rich" can be made to pay for everything is not only daft, it is vindictive and has become part of the politics of envy that defines the British left.

I'm not really sure that you understand economics very well.

It really is futile, if not downright offensive, to tell common folk to pay more taxes whilst multinational companies use tax havens to cheat the exchequer out of billions. Make companies like Sky TV, Google, Amazon, and Facebook pay their share of taxes first before telling the average Joe to.

NAS15840 said:

I don't really see how the concept that everyone should contribute, rather expecting "someone else" to pay for the things they want has anything do to with a badly managed program to maintain a supply of iron for the war.

Railings for scrap was a propaganda piece intended to increase public morale. The railings were dumped in the Medway estuary but the government knew that if people were prepared to make personal sacrifices for the common good then Britain would stand a greater chance of winning the war.

Your argument that everyone needs to contibute is effectively the same concept of personal sacrifices for the common good.

The current tax system is reliant on an ever decreasing group of people paying for everyone else, the reason we "can't afford" a German or Scandanavian level of state expenditure is because people aren't willing pay their levels of taxation. Either services stay as they are everyone pays in more. The idea that "the rich" can be made to pay for everything is not only daft, it is vindictive and has become part of the politics of envy that defines the British left.

I'm not really sure that you understand economics very well.

It really is futile, if not downright offensive, to tell common folk to pay more taxes whilst multinational companies use tax havens to cheat the exchequer out of billions. Make companies like Sky TV, Google, Amazon, and Facebook pay their share of taxes first before telling the average Joe to.