I think it was Tim Worstall, or someone on his blog, who said that giving away free money was the simplest economic transaction imaginable. But the government regularly foul up...
Imagine some group empowered to combine birth and death registers, together with NI database, census returns, and citizenship registers to produce a central list of all 'valid' citizens. Keeping it up to date would be a continuing effort - but if people not on the 'valid' list received no benefits and had to pay towards valid citizen services (such as health and prescriptions) then the list could be self funding. ID cards may be required.
I have always resisted ID cards before and still feel queasy about the idea, but perhaps the time has come to revisit the consequences of open borders and fraud.
Sam - yes, there must be a tricky aspect to it that we don't understand, something to do with checking.
dearieme - I think it's a way of paying dead Republicans to vote Democrat.
DJ - I imagine it will be done in one way or another and it would solve a few problems, but yes I feel queasy about the ID idea too. Coupled with a more direct democracy it could possibly be useful and fairly safe, but that bit won't happen.
4 comments:
I think it was Tim Worstall, or someone on his blog, who said that giving away free money was the simplest economic transaction imaginable. But the government regularly foul up...
Why shouldn't the dead get free money? In the US they often vote, don't they? But only Democrat so I suppose we can safely assume they are in hell.
Imagine some group empowered to combine birth and death registers, together with NI database, census returns, and citizenship registers to produce a central list of all 'valid' citizens. Keeping it up to date would be a continuing effort - but if people not on the 'valid' list received no benefits and had to pay towards valid citizen services (such as health and prescriptions) then the list could be self funding. ID cards may be required.
I have always resisted ID cards before and still feel queasy about the idea, but perhaps the time has come to revisit the consequences of open borders and fraud.
Nobody expects the Data Inquisition....
Sam - yes, there must be a tricky aspect to it that we don't understand, something to do with checking.
dearieme - I think it's a way of paying dead Republicans to vote Democrat.
DJ - I imagine it will be done in one way or another and it would solve a few problems, but yes I feel queasy about the ID idea too. Coupled with a more direct democracy it could possibly be useful and fairly safe, but that bit won't happen.
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