The Demographic Disgrace

Being one of the inevitabilities of life, taxes just pass us by once a month with a cheery “So long! I’m off to the coffers!” That’s the sound of the money you earned going off to its new purpose in the public purse, to do good things up and down the country.
It’s going to help sick people to meet the costs of living, it’s going to pay for some unemployed people to maintain their lives of sitting around feeling sad about things and it’s going to subsidise arts, culture and leisure activities for all. Hurrah!
That’s just a tiny, little bit of it though, so where is the rest going? And what good is it doing you, young person?
Well you know that it’s not paying for your bins to be collected and the roads and parks to be kept clean and in good repair because, Why! That’s what your council tax is for! You know it isn’t paying for your house because you’re paying through the nose to a private landlord or living guiltily with your parents. It’s not paying for your kids to be educated because you don’t have any kids and won’t be able to afford to have any for a long, long, long time. You know its not going to pay for the police to keep you safe because every time you’ve ever phoned them they have only turned up after 2-3 hours when it’s too late for them to serve any useful purpose. You know it’s not paying to keep the criminals out of harm’s way in prison, you know because they are outside tipping over the recycling dumpsters, throwing things at the windows and stealing your car. You know it’s not going to help rehabilitate alcoholics and drug addicts because they are out enjoying themselves to death while you spend another exciting night in front of the telly with a bottle of budget Chablis and an ASDA curry between two.

You know that its not paying for your lovely travel by public transport because that’s being arranged by private companies who think cleaning a bus or train once a week is acceptable and that timetables are just a guideline. You know that sizeable chunk of your income won’t be going to uphold the fabulous NHS services you enjoy free of charge because mostly as a healthy young person who has never given birth, undergone a triple heart bypass, been on kidney dialysis or had a hip replacement, you don’t really use them and every time you’ve ever tried recently, you’ve been told to stay at home and call NHS 24 so someone who is not qualified to give you advice can prattle away down the phone. If you live in England, it didn’t pay for your university fees, if you live in Scotland you are pretty much squared up for those fees after a few years of tax and probably already covered it with the tax from that back-breakingly exploitative, part-time job you had whilst you were studying which was essential for you to afford to study in the first place. Likewise you won’t be taking advantage of married couples’ tax savings until you are at least 40 which will be the age when you are able to afford a wedding and/or have a meaningful romantic attachment because you have finally left that quash of eligibility, your mum’s house, behind. You’ve already been told that it’s not going to contribute much or anything to your pension because there won’t be any money left in the pension fund by the time you retire because all those children you didn’t have until you were in your forties are still at school.
So what are young people paying taxes for? What are we getting for our hard-earned cash? We are regularly forking out on fuel tax, alcohol tax and tax on our savings. We are paying tax on our debts, our cars, our flights abroad, our goods and services and our accommodation whether we own it or not. We are seeing very little benefit in return. There is nobody in Parliament looking out for our interests so we don’t have a democratic voice.

If you remember that topical reality-documentary a few years back where Michael Portillo swapped places with a single mum for a week, perhaps you will recall the startling and dramatic change of attitude that befell our beloved ex-MP when he realised the amount of effort involved and the marked scarcity of cash. Perhaps this social experiment should be repeated with a young person swap instead, where the MP in question, perhaps Patricia Hewitt, could try the life of a junior librarian from the London School of Economics who is forced to pay extortionate living costs she can barely afford to live anywhere near her job and commutes on public transport constantly stressing about being late, paying her vast bills and being mugged. At the weekends she cannot afford to drink nice expensive designer wine in a nice designer wine bar. If she is lucky she might manage a binge in a cheap and charmless chain pub. She has a good degree and lots of work experience but cannot get promotion or another job with any prospects. If she continues to work there for the next ten years she will never afford to have a mortgage. Patricia Hewitt was probably born with a silver mortgage in her mouth and perhaps the scales would fall from her eyes.
Some people that I went to school with left and got a trade. They didn’t bother with university or student debt. They have been working full time and are now doing very well for themselves. Up and down the country a large chunk of the young population is doing the same. They have been paying large whacks of money into the public coffers and haven’t seen much return on their investment. Perhaps because they are doing OK financially they aren’t as disillusioned as their useless-degree-wielding counterparts but that doesn’t mean they are getting a fair deal either.
There are also the people who fell by the wayside, who are now claiming unemployment benefit at a small cost to the taxpayer (I don’t have any truck with people who whinge about paying for benefits, they account for such a small chunk of our tax that it makes National Insurance payments look exorbitant.). These people cannot expect anything from the government to make their lives better. The jobs that many of them would be happy to do are being shipped out to poorer, cheaper countries. The influx of economic migrants who are happy to work harder, better, faster and stronger are also flooding the treasury with lots of lovely money and why would the government want to have to spend money on its own people in need of training and encouragement when it reaps the rewards of taxing a submissive workforce? Nobody expects the government to just simply hand over more free money to those on benefits, but it would be nice if they spent it on something useful to help people to lead productive and happy lives instead of things like initiatives to get “mature” citizens back in the job market while young people face ridiculous competition for even quasi-desirable jobs.

While I am in no way a supporter of the Conservative party, they have a vaguely amusing propaganda computer game called Taxman Gordon. Give it a shot young people! Shame you're not too young to remember Thatcher! In fact even if you are, your parents will never let you forget so don't worry about it.