来源：《每日电讯报》
原文刊登日期：2023年1月22日
The welfare state was established in the aftermath of the Second World War to act as a safety net for those unable to look after themselves either through old age, incapacity or temporary joblessness.
福利国家是在第二次世界大战后建立的，目的是为那些在年老、丧失工作能力或暂时失业时无法照顾自己的人提供安全网。
Its architects never envisaged that reliance on benefits would become a way of life rather than a staging post to a better future. But over the decades, socialised welfare has crept ever higher up the income scale to encompass people who would never have been regarded as poor and who do not consider themselves to be so.
福利制度的设计者从未设想过，依赖福利将成为一种生活方式，而不是通往更美好未来的中转站。但在过去的几十年里，社会化福利在收入阶梯表上越爬越高，涵盖了那些从未被视为穷人、也不认为自己是穷人的人。
Benefits are now payable to so many that more than half of Britain’s households receive more from the state than they pay in taxes. A study by the think tank Civitas has found that some 36 million people – more than 54 per cent of all individuals – paid less tax than they received in benefits and “benefits-in-kind,” defined as the estimated cost of NHS and state education services. This is the highest proportion of the population ever to take more out than they put in. It surpasses the previous high of 52.5 per cent in 2012-13, which was fuelled by the surge in the previous Labour government’s spending under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
现在很多人都可以享受福利，超过一半的英国家庭从国家得到的比他们缴纳的税还多。智库Civitas的一项研究发现，约3600万人(占英国人口的54%以上)缴纳的税款低于他们获得的福利和“实物福利”(定义为NHS和国家教育服务的估算价格)。这是有史以来索取比贡献多的人口比例最高的一次。这一数字超过了2012年至2013年创下的52.5%的高点，这是由托尼•布莱尔和戈登•布朗领导下的前工党政府支出激增所推动的。
That this has happened after 12 years of Conservative-led government is particularly depressing. Successive prime ministers, including the present incumbent, have professed their belief in a smaller state and lower taxes, but none have delivered.
在保守党领导的政府执政12年之后，依赖福利的人更多了，这尤其令人沮丧。历任首相，包括现任首相，都宣称他们信奉小政府和低税收，但都没有兑现诺言。
Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, said last week that anyone who thought taxes should be lowered in the current economic conditions were idiots. But the problem, as Civitas observes, is that this is not getting better, but worse. Both parties vie with each other as to which can spend the most and offer the most generous state help.
首相里希·苏纳克上周表示，任何认为在当前经济条件下应该减税的人都是白痴。但正如Civitas所观察到的，问题在于，滥发福利非但没有好转，反而变得更糟了。两党都在竞争谁花的钱最多，谁提供的国家援助最慷慨。
No one is making the argument anymore for reducing the size of the state to the levels seen in the most competitive economies in Asia like Singapore, where compulsory savings make sure people have individually tailored packages for their old age and health needs.
没有人再主张把政府规模缩小到新加坡等亚洲最具竞争力的经济体的水平，在新加坡，强制性储蓄确保人们有为他们的老年和健康需求量身定制的一揽子计划。
Here, the sense that someone else will always be around to pick up the tab has become so deeply ingrained in the political psyche that even to question it is to invite denunciation. The many thousands spending the weekend filling in their tax forms ahead of this month’s self-assessment deadline might be forgiven for wondering if it is worth it.
在这里，别人总是会来买单的感觉已经在政治心理中根深蒂固，甚至质疑它都会招致谴责。在本月的自我估税截止日期之前，成千上万的人将在本周末填写纳税申报表，如果他们想知道交这么多税是否值得，也是可以理解的。