why  the welfare state is costly in britain?(Brit civ)?
138964
In Britain we pay for the NHS, so everyone has a right to life. This doesn't really kick in until you see someone collapse in front of your eyes and know that if it wasn't for the NHS they might have to die there.
873006
Utopia, third right past the end of the rainbow.\n\nYou've missed out why we pay taxes. Apart from keeping some idle people wealthy they pay for education, health, housing roads, et al.\n\nThe weather, we can do nothing about, Politics can be changed by voting, yes actually voting.\n\nI'm not bothered whether a person is blue, green or pink and purple stripe, I don't care if a person worships a gold bar or a house brick. He will seek the correct direction at some time.\n\nI think that we British are probably not very happy because we are a constant target with criticism by insiders and outsides. We have a Press that can only print bad news.\n\nWe have a Civil Service (centrally), that is at best inept, and at its worst criminally negligent.\n\nHowever elsewhere it is probably crooked.\n\nI think that if we adopted the policy of 'if you don't like us GO!' Even if a persons lineage goes back generations to Dick Turpin, still GO and the sooner the better, because that person will find that they are carrying bad baggage with them.\n\nTake another look at Britain, walk around it, talk to strangers in other areas.\n\nYou will find that it is the best place on Earth.
455703
In the UK according to The Department of Statistics it is £400000 over an economic life time.\n\n\nThese sites will give you a detailed answer for Canada, USA , and UK....
945089
Because our benefits system is totally messed up. I read somewhere yesterday that there was some homeless woman who could not be housed or helped because she was not a priority case. How homeless do you need to be? Immigrants are a cheap source of labour, and the government is all too happy to take them in - more £££ for them you see?\n\nThis whole situation is out of control now, and it's way way too late to do anything about it.
173652
Welfare is welfare, corporate or social EXCEPT for the following facts:\n\n1) The Goverment gives WAY more to Corporations then it does to the poor and needy. This is just plain wrong. It helps wealthy and powerful corporations become even more powerful and rich. These corporations then fire a bunch of rank and file workers and then ship their jobs overseas. They use the our tax money to help THEMSELVES out and screw over the American tax paying public. As for the poor they get peanuts. Has anyone out there tried to live off of Food Stamps or other public assistance? If you have then you know that the money the goverment gives doesn't really do shit for you. Most working poor need public assistance just to keep their heads above water. Aren't we a "Christian" country? We're obilgated to help the poor not help the rich get more wealth!\n\n2) Whenever the rich gets a break (in getting out of paying taxes or free money) they use it to expand themselves first and then maybe they might throw a few dollars into the American public by spending it for the good of the many,\n\n3) CEO's and other power players get rich off grants while the rank and file (Joe public) get shit!\n\n4) There are lots of idiots out there that think that the poor have it easy and just get fat off our tax dollars and the FACT is that most of them are barely making it and are an inch from joining the homeless.\n\n5) The working class and the working poor pay more taxes then the rich because the rich can afford expensive tax lawyers and find the loop holes in the tax laws while the middle class and the poor pay more then the rich do. That's fucked up!\n\n6) Remember ENRON and the S&L scandels? Who made off with the money (a bunch of rich CEO assholes) and who got screwed (all the working class Joes and their families)?\n\nWhy should my tax dollars go to rich asshole and big corporations that DON'T need the money?!?!?\n\nAn ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It takes less money to help the mentally ill in an out patient center then it does to lock them up in prison (the same goes to drug addicts and other criminals) But the corporations that keep building the prisons get richer off the goverment grants and they love it.
148146
Some of the EU countries have first rate economies. Others hinge on third world economies. Also, there's enormous historical differences between cultural work ethics (for example France virtually closes during the month of August whereas Great Britain operates 24/7.\n\nThis doesn't make membership better or worse per se, but at the outset, the less productive countries are being subsidized by the more productive countries. They're initially getting a much bigger bang for their buck...or Euro/Pound.\n\nIn the United States, we're used to something like that since all of the state's economies have virtually melded together over time. But highly productive states still subsidize some veritable welfare states to some extent.\n\nFinally, the United States doesn't have the extreme historical and cultural rivalries between states as do the assorted EU countries. (The US has SOME, but it's more a good-natured rivalry than it is an economic and political competition.)\n\nA good analogy would be to consider the effect if the United States merged with Canada and Mexico.
480478
No because there should be a right to free medical care (as in the British Health Service) and to free education throughout life (Life-Long Learning).\n\nWhat bothers me is that some people have to pay, when it should be free for everyone as of right in a civilised society.
446256
Why do you want to come to the U K? We're overcrowded already and it costs a fortune to pay Social Security benefits to all the illegals, asylum seekers and immigrants who won't work.
451747
Millions of pounds.\n\n\nDer realy expensive
929580
personnally it is the aim to amount wealth at the expense of everything else, ie use the army to amass policital control in another country then pay american companies to work there the companies of course are mass benefactors to the republican party.  \n\nOffer no government health care to your people so the poor die.  As a brit it amazes me that the richest country in the world cannot afford to pay healthcare for their poorest people.  Your government really scares me.
824144
Lauriekins is right, we have reciprocal arrangements within the EU, so the government subsidizes the cost of the education.  I studied in Holland for a year and got subsidised education there, just as a Dutch student would pay the same fees as me here in the UK, so its fair enough.  It doesn't make any sense to spend thousands educating foreign students who will not put anything back into the system, would it?  Actually, foreign students make up most of the funding for the British higher education system, that's why they're so keen to recruit students from places like China and Malaysia - lots of money for the uni!!
366435
To answer the question at hand first, the reason you find it difficult is that you are “FOLLOWING” the laws in place.  If you want to properly live in the UK, better have a good education, large nest egg of money and a job offer that will employee you or a company that will sponsor you. Just like anyone else trying to get into another country, and I have been to many. \n\n\nNow for a little education for FarmTruck, gailforce_wind, and tegidfoel It is difficult to see any points of view from any of your answers. \n\nTegidfoel, needs to read more about history, and not only the “tilted” view of American secondary school books.  Have you tried reading above a 5th grade level?  Now for your comment on Technology in the US, for the most part the US is in par with the major countries, yet as far as implementing much of this, the US is about 3 to 7 years behind most of the Asian rim and European countries (examples: auto engines, cell phones, TVs, most electronics and you can find we are falling behind in computers now).  China even has the safest nuclear reactor that should scare you. Hell even Canada, just might be a little farther ahead in some areas…  So when was the last time you were out of your city limits? \n\nI have lived and worked in 17 nations. \n\nReason one not to move to the UK, the cost will eat you alive. (I have lived in London, Belfast, Edinburgh, Uckfeild and Leeds off and on between 1982 to 2000, it is hard to save money) Now that is an agreement not to live there, not because you say so, sounds so very uneducated, be clear about your option and try to find a balance with you emotions.  \n\nFarmtruck is just angry about something, go get therapy.  \n\nGailforce wind – find a back bone and look for something more substantial to read other than some one like farmtruck
796808
I am English, and I have lived in both Wales and Scotland in the past.\n\nThere would be substantial problems in achieving independence for England from Scotland, but I think there would be substantial advantages too. For all concerned.\n\nFirstly, from an English point of view if the four countries of the United Kingdom went their separate ways transfers of Westminster funds to subsidise Scotland etc.would cease. And I do not think these subsidies benefit Scotland: on the contrary I think that they lead to dependence on public services. The economic growth of the Republic of Ireland shows how an independent Scotland could prosper through enterprise.\n\nObviously, the electoral arrangements that give Scotland and Wales, but not English regions, democraticly elected assemblies  are grossly unfair. They are made worse by the West Lothian question, ie. Scottish MPs voting on specifically English matters.\n\nYou refer to Latvia and Ireland. More power affecting the UK has been transferred to Europe than the politicans admit, and is largely exercised by  Commissioners of which each country has one and in the Council of Ministers, and its subsidiary mettings of specialist ministers.  This results in countries like Latvia (since you mention Latvia) having preferential treatment compared to areas like South East England of equal or greater size. If Scotland, Wales and perhaps Northern Ireland (that's one of the problems) were independent, we would have four Commissioners or Ministers representing us instead of one. We should have more MEPs too as MEPs are not now elected, as they should be, strictly in proportion to population.\n\nOne reason Westminster fiercely opposes independence for Scotland or England is the vested interest of politicans and civil servants.But to me this is an opportunity. Westminster government has become inefficient and insufficiently democratically responsive. The unprincipled inequalities of democratic arrangements between England and Scotland are just one example of this. Independence between Scotland and England should apart from anything else make us rethink wha government we should really need. And if the Westminster establishment don't want this split I suggest one thing they need to do is reform UK government to be principled, efficient, and genuinely concerned for democracy. I think such reform could improve opportunities for people of talent to rise to the top in politics and the civil service.\n\nFinally, nothing in this response implies any inquality of regard for England  or Scotland generally (as opposed to political cliques from one nation or the other). and I would hope that any split would take place peacefully and in friendship.
885358
No. Whereas the wealthy keep the country going with their exobitant taxes they also increase the costs for everyone else to live. How can anyone justify having so much money when fellow human beings are starving?
885339
Because the government funds enough private citizens (welfare) without needing to spend more.  There is no money to spend anymore...it doesn't grow on some tree behind The White House last time I checked, so as taxpayers, do I want to pay?  Heck no!!!!
662616
I have to agree that the investment is poor.  As an ex-pat Aussie living in the UK it is clear that the English don't show the same level of government support as we do.  I guess maybe it's because there is only so much money to go around, and the populace insist on maintaining an expensive health service, NHS dentists, and other traditional tax absorbers; and that in light of this someone running for office won't win votes by saying "I'm going to eliminate non-private dentistry and build a National Institute of Sport"
235536
England. I'm basing this off Joseph Lee's book where he says "Developments towards a welfare state after the war owe more to English example than to indigenous impulse". So, in effect, he says we copied the system from Britain.