January 5, 2010
Extra Reading
A little extra evening reading for you all.
Chris Giles at the FT Blog on why the Tory proposals on marriage are incoherent, probably won’t work and aim to redistribute wealth from poor to rich.
(h/t to FreeThinkEcon)
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freethinkingeconomist said,
January 5, 2010 at 10:29 pm
I am intrigued by the FT’s attitude to the Tories at present; page 2 and the leaders today were pretty poor for Conservatives.
This feels very different from 1997.
Paul Sagar said,
January 5, 2010 at 11:22 pm
I don’t know the FT’s track record well enough.
But I’ve often heard Tories whining that it’s pro-New Labour.
Certainly, it’s not “The Economist”, with its default conservatism. And thank God. The Economist is full of piss-poor journalism that the FT is mostly free of. As tomorrow’s post will illustrate.
Liberal Conspiracy » Reasons why Tory family tax-breaks won’t work said,
January 6, 2010 at 4:48 am
[...] [via Paul Sagar] [...]
David said,
January 6, 2010 at 12:29 pm
The article is good, but only attacks arguments for the policy on the assumption that a) it is a transferable allowance (Cameron’s keeping mum at the moment), b) that it is intended to actively increase marriage through financial incentives, and c) that the idea behind it is that increasing marriage through financial incentives will improve society.
These are fairly specific assumptions, and there are other arguments that can be applied in favour of recognition of marriage. Firstly, that there is a fairness principle in terms of how different couples should be taxed. You could argue that giving couples flexibility in terms of how to balance their work-life balance is an important thing to do, and something that cannot be achieved merely by benefits that follow children. Secondly, there is simply the argument that it is right to reward long-term commitment. This is the flip side to the “financial incentives” argument; it doesn’t assume that this will increase the number of married couples, but it does assume that it’s fairer to reward commitment, and grant married couples the financial flexibility to structure their family and work how the see as best, than simply not to be blind to it.