11 - Different Approaches to Social Protection

Summary

From the 1960s on there had been a bifurcation in the welfare states’ approaches to social protection. Many (continental) European countries had chosen high taxes, high public spending, and universal programs. The United States and some others, especially, Anglo-Saxon countries, had used tax burdens reduced, by “tax expenditures,” for some groups. These groups benefited from the reduction in their tax burdens in the same way as the citizens in continental European countries were helped by higher public spending. The tax expenditure tended to be more beneficial to richer individuals while the focused spending programs became progressively less focused, because of political pressures and corrupt practices to expand accessibility to the programs. Tax expenditures also reduced the tax burden on corporations, creating corporate welfare programs. There was a tendency to see social spending as welfare but not tax expenditures.