Austria
Eva Linsinger
Austrians are too law-abiding, said Eva Linsinger in Vienna’s Der Standard. “If you’re dumb enough to stick rigidly by the letter of the law, it’s your own fault.” Turns out, you don’t have to take the law so literally. According to Social Welfare Minister Ursula Haubner, for example, Austrian parents who earn too much to qualify for government child support payments but claim them anyway can just keep the money. Her ministry won’t bother auditing or punishing them. Are you one of those parents who “carefully calculated your work hours so you wouldn’t earn too much?” Or maybe you applied for child support payments for just a limited time, or not at all. “Too bad for you: Such correctness wasn’t necessary.” Haubner simply doesn’t want to enforce the law. She says she wants the income threshold to be abolished, so that all parents, regardless of how rich or poor they are, get state money to help feed and clothe their children. “That’s certainly a worthy subject for debate.” Until the minister persuades her colleagues in government to submit a bill, though, the law stands. Encouraging Austrians to flout it is simply irresponsible.
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