Inform, educate, entertain.

Tax credit plan 'could hit thousands of young Britons'

So said the headline on BBC News this morning.  Michael Buchanan Social Affairs Correspondent, BBC News went on to helpfully explain that “Thousands of young British people could miss out on tax credits and housing benefits under new government plans.”

But what exactly is this article saying?  The upfront message is very simple, easy to digest.  Cuts. 

But what it is also saying is more subliminal.  It is also saying “What we have at the moment is to be the expected level of benefits that everyone will get”.  We have moved to this intellectually vacuous point of laziness where we just say a reduction in anything is “cuts” and accepting it as wrong.    But why todays date for that?  Why 11^th August 2015?  Why not 11^th August 1955?   Or 11^th August 1915?  Why set that as the date by which you declare "cuts" from.  There is this rather erroneous assumption that what is today is our right for tomorrow.  If that is the case we are stuck in a time warp that will bankrupt the nation. 

It is right that as a society we will decided that, on occasion, it is right to support people in need.  That is a fair and just thing to do.  It is a sign of humanity.  But as right as that is it is equally as wrong to think that because we do something today we should do it tomorrow. And if we do not do it tomorrow, it should not be seen as a cut as the base line is always zero. To me every bit of expenditure of our taxes that the government engages in should have a sunset clause where it has to be assumed the default position is zero expenditure.  Every sunset the case will have to be made again for why the government wants to use taxpayers money in a particular way.  Yes, that includes military as well as social expenditure.

So we will never read the headline about people “missing out” on tax credits as if they are some God given right.  They are not.  

As Social Affairs Correspondent, Michael Buchanan should be doing a bit more rigorous analysis of the real social attitudes that have brought about this assumption that anytime a government changes things it is to be trumpeted as a cut.   

And he should be mindful that the BBC, of all media organisations, should be mindful of Reith when he summarised the BBC's purpose in three words: inform, educate, entertain; this remains part of the organisation's mission statement to this day.