Council tax and new ways..........

[Andy Hall]

No it doesn't. It simply means that funding can go in the direction of a wider choice of education. I explicitly said that funding to the same level that would be spent to educate a child in the public sector could be directed to a private sector school and the parents could top it up.

That simply re-establishes a financial equality. As it is, the system is very restrictive and inappropriate. Parents who are willing to additionally fund their children's education have to pay for a state education that they don't use and then pay again out of taxed income to achieve what they believe is right.

There is no madness in choice, unless you believe that education should be restricted and dumbed down to the least common denominator.

Do you really think that people who fund their kids education out of marginal rate taxed income do so for fun or because they have money to throw away? Almost all the parents that I know who have done this have sacrificed hugely to do so because they simply don't trust the state to do a proper job.

[Capitol]

This sound to me like 60's Socialist dogma. Tax the people with big houses, big cars, big incomes, until they are as poor as an unemployed tenant. Poll tax was a much better system, with people paying for the services they use, with income taxes taking up the slack. Yes, it needed some refinement, but was much better than the previous and presently abused by central government systems.

If you want property taxes, then they should be set locally and without any central government imposed limits. Democracy is rarely practiced in the UK however.

Regards Capitol

[Capitol]

It works very well in the US.

Regards Capitol

[Capitol]

Agreed within limits, but when the local contractors employees decide that you have too many bags of recyclable rubbish and they simply leave them behind, then the system fails. If the contractor gets paid by the bag, he gets much keener!

Regards Capitol

[Capitol]

No, you need residents with standards, which, I agree, is getting harder and harder to find, in many areas, these days.

Regards Capitol

[Pete C]

This makes 2 assumptions; that payment of taxes is for services rendered to the individual, and also that taxes paid are equal to the service received.

In reality taxes paid by the individual pay for others education and healthcare and vice versa.

So IMHO the approval of a voucher system need to come about through democratic means.

I really don't like to see my taxes spent on NHS care for people's self inflicted health problems. However under a voucher system they would ALSO be subsidising the similar treatment of people who could otherwise wholly afford their own health care.

cheers, Pete.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Andy Hall wrote: [snip]

And how do you propose to fine the right person when you find half of their kitchen lying against your backyard wall?

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Andy Hall wrote: [snip]

Don't they have community skips by you?

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Bet you £1 to a penny they won't take non recyclable items.

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[Capitol]

Hmm. So this explains why the Cuban residents are so desperate to leave Miami and return to Cuba. I'd suggest a bit more homework on this one!

The interesting point on healthcare is that we in the UK, now have the same excessive paperwork(and administrator) levels as the US(if not higher), pretty close to the same operating costs and are much less effective in efficiency and response time(even whilst under a Labour government).

Regards Capitol

[Capitol]

Best suggestion I've read so far! However, that should only be after we have reduced the salaries of all of them to the national average wage.

Regards Capitol

[Andy Hall]

No they don't, and I wouldn't want to encourage them to do so.

[Andy Hall]

People are unlikely to take rubbish for a significant distance. If it became a regular thing, the culprits would soon become known.

[<me9]

Mainly down to a parasitic private system within and adjacent to the NHS hospitals creaming off their profits by methods that would be regarded as bribery and corruption in any other field. The private sector should be charged for passing on their failures to the NHS, and the consultants who moonlight in the private sector should lose their cushy NHS salary and pension and have to refund the huge subsidy they got in training.

Part of the reason for the length of waiting lists is so that the (same) consultant can rake in more money by allowing patients to pay (a bribe) for an early private consultation which leads to more prompt NHS treatment for that patient.

[Frank Erskine]

They'll certainly take fridges, freezers etc, and even scrapped cars by special arrangement.

[Anna Kettle]

It was immediately available when the poll tax was pulled. That doesn't make it better

Id cards are a new variety of poll tax. And I predict that they are doomed to fail just as catistropically (sp). Prisons will be full of non payers like me

Anna

[Alan]

Are you saying that I and my (now deceased) uncle are lying?

I'd ask you to either prove us wrong or retract that statement.

[Bob Martin]

In Germany (at least, when I was living there in the early 80s) they had a monthly "big rubbish day" when people put out beds, fridges, etc. A key feature of the scheme was that people would wander round and take whatever they fancied. The council picked up the rest.

(thinks, why does the UK never take up bright ideas from elsewhere?)

[Matt]

Because like just about everything it was invented here first.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yup. And base their pensions on the national average too. And their various allowances.