Top marginal income tax rate should be fifty percent

[LeftishBrit]

77. You are speaking like a right-winger here

Poor, ill, elderly or vulnerable people SHOULD be helped to survive, and that generally includes government help. Families should help - but many poor and vulnerable people either have no family, or family members who are just as poor and vulnerable as themselves. Charities should help - but there aren't enough to do the whole job. Individuals should help - but there are limits to what any one of us can do. So that leaves the government, or alternatively allowing the poor and weak to perish.

'an expectation that the number of persons receiving something from the government should be enlarged each year, and that the benefits they receive should be expanded.'

This does not seem to me to be happening all. Government services in most places are being cut, not expanded. What *is* true is that the number of very elderly people has expanded considerably in recent years, and they need more government help than younger people. Also, many more people are unemployed at the moment. Not because they want to be, but because there are fewer jobs. In the UK at the moment, there is now an average of 23 applicants for every job that comes up. The way to reduce the number of people who are on unemployment benefits is to create jobs!

Survival should not be dependent on being 'successful'.