Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Trev
You need to remember that the Labor Party of old (Whitlam, Hawke, Keating) is NOTHING like the Labor Party of today, you shouldn't judge the decisions of the past on the Labor Party of today. Gough was pretty much the last of the 'true believers', believe it or not but Latham exhibited the 'true believer' traits but the delivery was ****ed up
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Sure some working class people went to University but overwhelmingly it benefited the middle class free university.
Free University was the definition of middle class welfare.
Like most of the lefts ideas it gets judged on the "Intention" not the the outcome as you are doing in your reply.
The problem you have in your argument is that from the profligate Whitlam government all governments for the last 43 years have kept Federal Government spending at around 23-25% of GDP both sides.
For you to single out the Howard years for middle class welfare is intellectually dishonest.
Keating did increase welfare to the middle class during the recession. It is in the budget papers and a well-known fact. I'm not commenting on whether it was a poor decision or a beneficial policy, simply pointing out that you are critical of just one government as if all ills come from them. Simply dishonest.
It is particularly amusing considering Rudd/Gillard followed.
The political left in general has been able to claim that they have more compassion for the less fortunate, and to depict their opponents as lacking in compassion for others. For none of these assertions have they felt a need to offer hard evidence.
Economics and politics must both deal with a basic fact of life: What everybody wants adds up to more than what is possible. Economics deals with this by rationing through prices. Politics deals with it by lying and promising more than it can possibly deliver - Thomas Sowell
Politicians have learned to call their spending of the taxpayers' money 'investment,' even when it is just pouring money down a bottomless pit, in order to win votes from the recipients