It's a good IQ test if someone thinks a so-called "tax concession" is the equivalent of welfare.
The government *could* have a 100% income tax, or 50% inheritance tax, or 30% tax on the value of your house annually, or a 200% stamp duty.
The government can tax anything it likes at any rate that it likes so any dollar left in our pockets can be declared a "tax concession".
IOW anybody who uses the phrase "tax concession" is a full blown Maoist. There are no exceptions. If you hear somebody say it make sure you don't allow them anywhere near your property because they will steal it as they believe they're entitled to it.
Government spending takes resources from producers and hands it to non-producers thereby increasing the cost of being a producer vs a non-producer. If theft is morally bad - and most people think it is - then governments need overwhelming moral justification to do this at all. I don't believe "it wins votes" counts as overwhelming moral justification and the substitution effect tells us that there is *never* an economic justification (as increasing the cost of production always leads to less production).
Others have said Singapore is better and it is but their birth rate like ours is collapsing. They (wisely) haven't tried to fix their birth rate problem by importing people who hate them the way Australia and the US have but they'll still see catastrophe if they can't fix it. South Korea and Japan are the same.
If you have universal suffrage you *might* be able to have material comfort but you *cannot* survive more than a few generations.
NST Price at posting:
$21.17 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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