In other words you've bought into a form of well intentioned Libertarianism. The only problem with which is that it doesn't actually work. It doesn't work because the needs of individuals can be wildly different due to a whole range of reasons, and can fluctuate wildly over time.
Let's take your example of the amount of government spending on average spent on each person. Now the key word there is average. One person might require a huge amount of home care, or have a lot of kids that require more child benefit, or x, or y, or z. Now you've just handed that person a lump sum and said there you go, better hope you don't need more help than that because otherwise you're stuffed. Plus you've just handed it to people who didn't actually need it in the first place.
Oh and more than that, these things people need will no long have a government department arranging the help and using mass purchasing power or whatever, instead each person will just have to get on with it and provide for themselves using the cash given. They might be sick, or desperately trying to raise a houseful of kids, or look after a terminally ill family member, but they've had their money and they'll just have to make their own arrangements, right?
There's actually some good arguments for a universal basic income, but one that just replaces government spending would be extremely damaging to a huge number of people.
I used a simple example. Naturally there would be a degree of banding in terms of how the basic income would be distributed. Almost a negative taxation if you will, which would be banded just like positive taxation is banded.
Again I didn't say it is completely replacing all public spending - I said returning to merely 2009 levels of spending would allow us to provide the poorest a basic income at a level similar to the £7,750 stated previously. People would still have access to the public services, they'd just be curtailed to cater for the poor, rather than for everyone which naturally includes the wealthy and very wealthy.
In terms of the economies of scale you're talking about these are more than gobbled up by Government inefficiencies and competition, so people would be guaranteed to see a saving.
Can you please name me a country who uses your sort of reasoning? That would be easier for people like myself to understand exactly what you have in mind
I think Hong Kong did exceptionally well 1970 - 1997 with this kind of model, before they were "returned" to Chinese sovereignty. They saw incredibly high GDP growth fueled by a low tax economy. They have gone from a poor, irrelevant country to one whose GDP per capita is among the highest in the world. Much higher than almost any non-oil fueled country in the world, including the US, UK, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Canada, France, Belgium, Austria etc. Their taxation level to GDP ratio is 13% for example, compared with the UK around 35%.
Don't assume this is me saying Hong Kong is a paragon of virtue (certainly now that they have Chinese involvement). It's a far "younger" economy where such rapid growth has caused it's own problems. They've kept taxation very low in order to fuel further rapid economic growth; with the view that a strong economy is better for everyone.
Their latest budget shows a large budget surplus of over £9b with fiscal reserves surpassing £100b on a GDP. This is on a GDP level around 12% that of the UK (so the surplus for comparison would be around £75b with fiscal reserves of £833b).
Can you imagine how fantastic it would be to have a fiscal reserve of £833b, rather than a debt of £1.56 trillion? Instead of a £43b annual interest bill we'd have interest receipts of over £20b. This additional c. £65b per year is more than our total current spend on our Education, Police, Fire & Legal system combined!
Second time I'm having to repeat myself with you. Wages are a cost. They are factored into the price of the product. Coporation tax is paid on profit. This is not a cost. This can't be added to the price of the product because of competition.
It doesn't take a genius to figure that more people will take up a higher education if they didn't have to pay for it
If you genuinely believe that increasing corporation tax doesn't change people's behavior then there's no point discussing the issue further. Put it this way - the largest companies that I know firstly decide what they want to pay in corporation tax; then they work backwards as to what to declare to make this a reality.
If the Government found a way of changing how companies announce their profits then the same companies would find a way around this to allow their owners to earn the same
net income. The wealthiest and most powerful people in society aren't going to allow a Government policy to hit them in their pockets. In fact I'd say pissing them off would have the reverse effect.
When I read that last quote you messed up a bit, I thought it was you saying it and you'd suddenly done a gigantic May-esque U-turn.
