People with a degree of sense would know that taxing everyone on the principle that some of them will be well off is about as far from 'progressive' as you can get. Not to mention its basically a double tax considering the higher rates of tax they'll also pay after graduation.
If you support it then good for you, but spare us the 'you must be stupid if you don't agree with me' crap. Especially when you've already admitted that correlation does not imply causation, yet you keep repeating the idea that it does anyway.
a) You aren't taxing everyone. You're taxing people who're earning enough to comfortably and progressively pay it off
b) Yes it is a double taxation. As is every other tax imaginable. As a company owner I pay corporation tax, NI, Income tax, VAT, fuel taxes... Everything at a minimum is a double taxation.
c) I'm not saying you must be stupid if you don't agree. I'm suggesting that people who support the policy at least be open about the fact that statistically it is a policy that helps the richer members of society at the expense of the poorer members of society.
I guess this is the biggest problem with the inane Tory campaign. If you can't explain to the electorate that another party is being blatantly dishonesty in firstly the bleak reality of taxing the rich to a greater extent and secondly the actual reality that the poor will be footing the bill... what hope is there.
Personally abolishing student fee's would be great for myself. My future children won't have to pay for it and I won't be the one footing a proportional amount of the bill as I'm firmly in the middle class. However I think it's a sad state of affairs that the youth vote has gotten behind this policy in the guise of it being a progressive policy to help everyone in society. When in reality the statistics show it's a regressive, sinister policy whereby the poor in society end up footing the bill for people who're the actual beneficiaries of the policy and also financially far more able to pay.
By paying for free tertiary education the government is encouraging people to better themselves, which will, in turn, make them better taxpayers. It also enforce the idea that the UK is the country to be to raise a family in and that paying taxes is for the benefit of everybody not only the 'poor' person who sit all day long at the pub. The UK like Malta can't afford competing with other countries in terms of salary (ex Australia for doctors). However it can compete in other ways ie by setting friendly friendly procedures.
Don't you think that this sort of policy is better off then financing the Trident, bombing Libya and Iraq or giving aids to a country who has its own space programme?
The problem is the statistics show this isn't happening. By the time the poorer people in society tend to reach 16 they don't have the abilities to succeed in higher education. If you want to encourage people to better themselves then these tens of billions should be invested in primary/secondary school education in deprived area's. Spend the money actually giving these people the opportunities in the first place, rather than saying you'll pay for something that isn't attainable.
In terms of the allocation of funds it's a somewhat pointless argument. I'd like to a freer society whereby Government spending is slashed considerably across the board in favour of protecting the poor and taxing the rich, but allowing them to spend their money more freely. For example if anyone earning more than a certain amount was exempt from NHS services, then the NHS would have much less pressure and the people earning more would just ensure they had private health insurance. Likewise if anyone earning more than a certain amount was exempt from free state education the pressures on free education would be much reduced and again the richest would just send their children to private schools.
My view is Government spending should be much, much lower in favour of allowing people to spend their own money. People tend to spend money far more efficiently than the Government.
I'd prefer the Government give me a £15k cut in my current taxation levels and as an individual give me the freedom to choose my own Healthcare, Children's education, Charities I donate to, how much of a pay-rise to give my staff, what car to buy etcetc. Rather than them forcibly take as much of my income as they possibly can and then by restricting my personal liberties - force me to accept whatever they deem to be acceptable. Tell me what Hospital I must go to, what School my children must attend, what car I'm allowed to buy, how far I'm allowed to travel.
Excess taxation in my view is the most liberty-restricting facets of modern Government. You have countries wanting to spend more and more of your money which eventually means you have very little left and they're telling you exactly how to spend every single penny.
So people who drop out of a degree due to, say, mental health issues are then saddled with a load of debt without the benefit of a "better" job to help them pay for it?
If there's a link between poverty and that sort of mental illness (or indeed any other factor that makes kids from poorer backgrounds more likely to drop out of college) then they're essentially forced to take a greater risk with their future than kids from wealthier backgrounds? Hardly seems like a great idea given how many people do drop out of college.
Again it isn't debt in the traditional sense. If they never earn a salary that allows them to pay it off it goes unpaid and eventually is written off so essentially the Government pay.
I'm unaware of the link between poverty and mental health, but believe we need progressive policies across the board. Any policy that takes from the poor to pay for a service enjoyed mostly by the wealthy seems a bizarre policy in my view - you may as well just reduce the higher tax rate to 20% if you want to give a tax break to the middle classes.
