[statstutor]

> the challenge is that people have made long-term financial plans based on it, and if you were to suddenly cancel it altogether, lots of people would probably get in trouble.

This could be solved by just cancelling it. People taking advantage of this scheme:

a) had no reasonable expectation that it would be long-term, and,

b) had to be wealthy enough to initially access the scheme to benefit from it, and have since continued to benefit.

Handling any exceptional cases (which would be relatively very few) would be a lot more effective, in every sense, than continuing the scheme.

Besides, the Netherlands already has a Mortgage Guarantee Scheme which protects people with mortgages and changed circumstances.

[Vinnl]

People who recently got one might have some reasonable expectation that it wouldn't be long term (although often their mortgage advisor would probably have given them the impression that it would be), but there are still many home owners who would reasonably have believed so. And even the ones who do expect it to not be long-term, would not have expected it to be cancelled overnight.

I would certainly love to be rid of it sooner rather than later, but I do acknowledge that that's going to be disadvantageous to a lot of people, and will have to take them into account as well.

The mortgage guarantee scheme doesn't really apply here, I think: it raises the buying power of people with low incomes, but once you've bought a house, it only means that their bank gets paid if you're forced to sell it - but you'd still be forced to sell it.

[statstutor]

> And even the ones who do expect it to not be long-term, would not have expected it to be cancelled overnight.

I find this argument really strange.

Budgets can (and do) change and cancel categories of benefits for poor people overnight.

But benefits that accrue to wealthy people must not be changed overnight?

This is a function solely of power.

[Vinnl]

Is that so? Like which? Generally, I wouldn't be in favour of suddenly significantly cutting people's benefits without some compensation or other either. Luckily, I don't think that happens a lot.

For example, whereas we need to raise the retirement age, we don't suddenly increase it with a couple of years. It is raised slowly in increments, and less for people who are closer to the retirement age and thus have had less time to plan for it.