The bureaucracy is sacrosanct: Must not fire any of them -- even though firing just one would free up money to pay dozens of welfare recipients. It is clear where the real priorities of a Leftist government lie. The power to control people is what matters -- not helping them. And the "climate change" fairy matters more than the old and the sick, of course. Excerpt below:
LABOR will scrap annual bonuses of $1600 paid to carers as its budget razor gang carves deep into welfare programs to cut spending and curb inflation. It will replace the payments with a higher utilities allowance but will leave the sick and disabled and their carers hundreds of dollars a year worse off. Although Families Minister Jenny Macklin refused to confirm the plan last night, she stressed the payments, created by the Howard government and paid for the past four years, had never been written into budget forward estimates and were "one-off".....
The payment is one of at least 30 Howard government programs, worth $3.6 billion, to be dumped under Labor as it struggles to slice spending to curb inflation it blames on reckless spending and vote-buying by the previous government. Prior to the federal election last November, Labor produced costings of its own election promises along with $5.4 billion in savings to be achieved through scrapping or modifying Howard government programs. The razor gang is striking across all areas of government, with many slashed programs to be replaced by other new payments.
While some, such as the Carers' Bonus, will leave recipients worse off, others will be replaced by more lucrative spending schemes based on changed priorities. For example, Mr Swan will replace the low-emission technology demonstration fund, worth $140 million over four years, with a range of climate change related spending worth significantly more. Similarly, many old rural grants programs are to be replaced by others aimed at helping farmers adapt to climate change. And Labor's abolition of a $359million dental health plan will be countered by more than $600 million in new spending.
More here
Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. Also, don't forget your handy-dandy summary of Obama news at OBAMOLOGY
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IT'S THE DAME IN GREAT BRITAIN:
ReplyDeleteTHE REAL PURPOSE OF THE UK NHS
PM Gordon Brown had a New Year's message for the staff of the National Health System. Its implications are ominous for the people of Great Britain.
You might have thought that the purpose of the NHS was to provide health care for individual British patients.
You would be wrong.
You might have been a little less naive, and thought that the purpose of the NHS was to provide health care for the British people, collectively.
You would be wrong.
Gordon Brown admits that the purpose of the NHS is to take care of itself:
And we will also examine how all these changes can be enshrined in a new constitution of the NHS setting out for the first time the rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to NHS care.
I believe these are steps vital to securing the health of the NHS for the next sixty years.
He is proposing far-reaching changes in the way health care is provided, in order to secure the health of the NHS.
And what are those changes -- setting out the rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to NHS care? As the Telegraph reports:
Patients could be required to stop smoking, take exercise or lose weight before they can be treated on the National Health Service, Gordon Brown has suggested.
The NHS will be used as another tool to control private behavior. Excuses will be made so that services will not need to be provided at all.
Already this year, it has been reported that malnourished patients are being allowed to starve on NHS wards. The Conservative shadow Health Minister Stephen O'Brien noted:
"It is a scandal that in 21st-century Britain, we allow vulnerable patients to be let out of hospital in a malnourished state, and it is even worse that we allow thousands of patients to get more poorly while they are in hospital."
It doesn't work there. Why would anyone think it would work here?
And by the way:
The NHS is the third largest employer in the world, behind the Chinese Army and Indian Railways.
Labels: NHS
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