Before I start, I would very much like to say that I wish Nitafrong the best of luck in debating this topic. I know from experience how hard it can be when you are on the side of the debate that is harder to defend but I am very much looking forward to debating with you.
So, in this debate I have been asked to state why the economic health of a country is more important than the social programs that exist in the country in question. I am thankful that I have been handed this side of the debate because it will be infinitely easier to argue for. The long and short of this debate can be summarised in a few sentences and I am going to give to that summary now. Why, in times of financial hardship and recession are we allowing meaningless social programs to exist when our country as a whole in crumbling around us? Why, in times of recession are we putting the long-term financial stability of the United Kingdom at risk over policies and programs that are a tremendous drain on public funds? At the end of the day, this debate comes down to individuality and group mentality.
Of course, this is not just true of the United Kingdom but all over the developed world. The United Kingdom is one of the richest countries in the world and yet we are still trillions of pounds in debt and it is due to many factors. However, one of the main issues that have put countries into such dangerous times are the social programs that exist there.
Of course, this debate really comes down to how willing a government is to help the people that live within its borders and how successful the policies are. Unfortunately, most of the social policies that exist in the UK are huge, HUGE drains on public funds and are probably doing more harm than they are good at the time being.
Since I am from the UK and Nita is from Ireland, I cannot draw conclusions from the policies in Eire but I will certainly draw many conclusions from the nest few paragraphs of my argument. For the in the next few paragraphs, I will be examining the social policies that have come into fruition in the last 60 or so years in the United Kingdom. However, I would like to start things off if I could with a little history report. So, after the Second World War, William Beveridge was commissioned to compile a report on what the people of the Unite Kingdom would need to ensure the ling term health and wealth of the country would be secure. Many have slated this report as the beginning of the downward slope of social policies and many have signposted this as the birth of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. In his report, Beveridge found many evils that he thought needed to be wiped out if the country was to be healthy and without want.
These demolition of these evils is exactly what the government had planned and set the wheels in motion to get rid of the Five Great Evils. These evils were as follows: 'Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness'. The government quickly put social policies together that would fight the evils and the country would be more healthy and more prosperous than ever before.
Now that the history lesson is out of the way, I would very much like to split this argument down the middle. The to greatest targets for any government and especially the government of the United Kingdom is health and wealth. So, I would like to break it down into those two sub-categories if I may.
Health:
So, in 1948, the British government introduces the new National Health Service that would give free care to any British citizen. With the idea of eradicating disease from the country, the NHS set out to give a quality service which had no cost to the people using it. In fact, the bill would be fronted by the taxpayer and for a nominal fee, we could all be safe in the knowledge that we would not want for care under this new initiative.
Please, do not get me wrong. I am very thankful that I live in a country that gives me free heath care and I am even more thankful that I can walk into any hospital in the United Kingdom and receive treatment of any ailment. However, the NHS is a dying social policy gone wrong and for years, the British government has realised and known this. In fact, it is a common misconception that the NHS is free because it is far from that. The problem with all social policies in the UK is that there is barely ever a return on the money that is pumped into the policy on a yearly basis. For example: The NHS alone lose £800 million last year alone and this is getting worse due to the recession. I also feel that it is important to note that William Beveridge only suggested the NHS should run for around 10 to 15 years. After that, people would take more care of themselves and their would be no need for the free healthcare to exist anymore. However, the NHS is a prime example of how social policies in the UK have not gone to plan in any way. A dead loss of £800 million in one year is not progress and is harming the economic stability of the nation as a whole. This has always been the case.
In fact, in 1951, the Chancellor of the Exchequer resigned over the policy. Social policies, however universal, always have a target group and are always a drain on the economy of a country. The NHS has always been such. In modern Britain, 60 years later, the NHS still exists and it is due to one main factor. That factor is this: In the hope of eradicating disease form the civil landscape of the UK, we excelled want. For over 60 years, the UK has struggled to deal with escalating costs of the NHS and it stands as one of the biggest failures of social policies in British history.
This is finely illustrated by the escalating costs that have been pushed onto the citizens. Did you know that you are only allowed £25,000 of care in your life time? No, of course you havent because no self-respecting government that cares about costs will ever enlighten you to the full picture. It is the reason that you still have to pay for most of your prescriptions unless you meet one of the ever shortening list of criteria that the government have set out and all in the name of cutting costs of a crumbling, dying system that has had its heart ripped out of its body in the hope of saving more money.
Wealth:
Wealth is another sub section of social policy that has gone tremendously wrong when trying to cater to the individual needs of the people. Again, it was the Beveridge report that really brought to light some of the biggest inequalities that have dogged the UK for centuries. However, the social policies that have been put into action have not only back-fired in a horrible way, they have also financially crippled the United Kingdom.
You see, over the last few centuries, the government has tried to eradicate want and squalor; they did not take into account the other great evil of idleness. At the end of the day, if you give people something for nothing, they will expect it in the future. The UK government unleashed a vile monster when it introduced social security that is now beginning to take its toll on the the finances of the country, swallowing cash like it was nothing and giving out nothing in return. You see, some people in the UK have become used to getting something for nothing and do not want to work for it. That is why we are now seeing third generation unemployed in this country. People who are taking and taking from the country and giving nothing back. Social security payments will cost almost £200 billion in four years time, accounting for one pound in every four that the Government spends. That is an unholy amount of money to be losing and it is because of the failure of social policies on an individual basis that we are seeing the walls come crashing down upon us.
Now, I ask you. With the debt bill of most countries in the world sky-rocketing, why is it acceptable to say that the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many? Die to the factors of failed social policy on an individual lever, we are seeing the stability in public funds deteriorate and leaving us all in the shit. Individual help as opposed to safeguarding the stability of a countries future is ignorant and fucking crazy. With the UK debt bill reaching around 80% of our GDP at 1.2 trillion pounds, it is time that the government realised that they need to put more emphasis on safeguarding all of our futures instead of pandering to people who need individual help.
