Post
I am begging my fellow brits to understand that every initiative to "tackle the immigration problem" or "crack down on benefits fraud" is designed to do exactly two things:
1) make your life worse, for the benefit of those already better off than you
2) ensure that you place the blame on people who are powerless, instead of questioning why the people with the power to improve things keep making them worse (while you inexplicably cheer them on and demand that they do it even more)
In fact both of these types of crackdown are similar to "cracking down on crime", and suffer from the same issue:
The optimal amount of fraud (or any other crime) is not zero: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fraud/
The cost of eliminating the last few percent of fraud goes up exponentially, both in terms of actual financial cost, but more importantly, in terms of harm done to the innocent in the pursuit of punishing the guilty
Most people understand why we have the principle of "innocent until proven guilty", even though it means some criminals escape justice
A false accusation (let alone conviction) is often enough to destroy a person's life. But you cannot increase convictions without increasing *wrongful* convictions
Just like you cannot crack down on illegal immigrants without cracking down on legal ones too
And you cannot crack down on benefits fraud without cracking down on benefit claimants in general
Beyond a certain point, every additional police officer costs more than the crimes they prevent (not to mention the cost of the crimes that some of them will commit)
Every additional hurdle added to prevent illegal entry to the country will cause a proportion of those who deserve to be here to stumble and fall
Every hurdle added to prevent benefits fraud is one that *you* will have to cross to claim the healthcare, or tax rebates, or childcare benefits you deserve - that your taxes paid for
These measures don't save money by preventing fraud. If they save money at all, it's by simply exhausting the weakest, most hopeless, most overworked, most *needy* to the point that they just give up
I say "if", because more often than not, instead of saving money, these crackdowns mean we actually spend more money on preventing the "misallocation" of benefits than we would spend on providing them
Also, as pointed out in the comments, all these types of fraud are small beans compared to the massive tax fraud perpetrated by billionaires and large companies
But the cost of going after those targets is too high - not just in terms of the drawn out legal battles, but also the political fallout of pissing off a person or organisation that can use their power and influence to make the current administration look good or bad as they choose
Refugees and disabled mums are a much easier target
A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate
