Originally Posted by
theone
I think for me it's this belief that they have "paid in" to some sort of pension fund, a big pot of money waiting to be used in future.
That doesn't exist.
Governments of different parties, voted in over the past generation, continued to spend, spend, spend, not only spending this 'pension fund' but getting us deeper and deeper into debt at the same time. At the moment we're something in the region of £26,000 in debt for every man woman and child in the UK and even with current cuts that number is growing. Most people would be horrified if they had £26,000 in debt each, or £104,000 of debt per family of four, excluding perhaps their mortgage, so why are they happy to have the whole country owe that?
There's many ways we could deal with the pension burden.
One way would be to means test it straight away - stop paying out to those who don't need it. Again, this would be contentious as this mindset of 'I'm entitled to it' has not been removed. But it should be. The only people who should be entitled to benefit (and pensions are a benefit) are the people who need that benefit. I never saw many pensioners campaigning to save child benefit for all............
Another would be to pass laws that government is forced to save or invest national insurance contributions into a fund for future use. Take it out of their hands for general expenditure. Stop governments winning votes with popular promises of spending whilst passing the burden to the future generation. Of course this won't stop the current issue but it will ease it in future.
Pensioners, as a rule, turn out in higher numbers than other age groups to vote in elections and THAT is why no party is really willing to cut back on pensioners benefits. It's not that they believe in them, it's that they're scared to approach the subject.
Look at the free bus pass scheme for example. Where's the logic in it? Why is it a 60 year old deserves taxpayer funded travel but a 30 year old doesn't? It's nonsensical. £250 Million from the Scottish government straight into the hands of private bus companies. It's no surprise the owner of stagecoach buses donated £1,000,000 to the SNP, the policy is throwing public money at him.
I personally know well-off pensioners who leave their Audi A6 in the garage and jump on the 'free' bus to Inverness. They don't need a free bus ticket. They don't need free prescriptions. They don't need winter fuel payments. They don't need free TV licenses. But they continue to take advantage of these things, paid for by ordinary taxpayers, because they're 'entitled' to.................