The Shape of Things to Come?

While the Conservative Party refuses to come clean on where its massive 12 billion on benefits cuts are to come from [potentially it seems so far] refusing to announce where these cuts will fall, till after the election.

It certainly seems to be undemocratic to enter a general election refusing to explain to voters clearly, what your party’s plans are?

Meanwhile in Kansas USA, welfare recipients will be unable to get more than $25 per day in benefits from an ATM machine under a new law. Claimants will only be able to withdraw this much each day.

The bill prohibits welfare recipients from spending their benefits at certain types of businesses, including liquor stores, fortune tellers, swimming pools and cruise ships.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, often known as "welfare," is one of several federal programs administered by states at the ground level. The Kansas TANF program, known locally as the Successful Families Program, offers a family of three as much as $429 per month in cash benefits. Kansas is one of at least 37 states that distributes benefits on government-issued debit cards, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Under the new rule, a three-person family receiving the maximum benefit would have to go to the ATM more than a dozen times to get the full benefit.

Elsewhere Republicans have been busy pursuing changes to TANF, food stamps and unemployment insurance, with varying degrees of success. Missouri Republicans, for instance, are considering a bill to forbid food stamps from being spent on steak or seafood.

The federal welfare reform law of 1996 gave states significant leeway to design their own programs, and for the past five years, state Republicans have been busy pursuing changes to TANF, food stamps and unemployment insurance, with varying degrees of success.

Will we see these kind of draconian measures in the UK? That is a possibility, though these type of extreme measures may well breech the Human Rights Act?  The right of free association and particularly the right of free movement have been blamed for causing the immigration dilemma – ironically these rights may well benefit the British people as restrictions of benefits may well infringe fundamental rights.

It is nothing new of course - following winning the Battle of Hastings, William the Conquer forbade movement of serfs round the countryside, reducing them to little more than slaves. Williams’s dictatorship, with its draconian laws and cruel treatment of the poor, made him one of the world’s wealthiest people in history.  

It all sounds rather familiar - history does indeed repeat itself.  We certainly will need to weigh carefully the rights of taxpayer who fund benefits, with the rights and freedoms of those who receive them.  

Article produced with help from the Huffington Post