All-round Budget thread

We're not talking about fraud. We're talking about a system that is completely unsustainable. Can you not see that? That it costs more to keep people on benefits of any kind than it does to support the NHS.

Yes, it is Xenia.
The welfare state is a bloated, abused mill stone around our collective necks.

No it isn't, that's hysterical.

It is no longer a safety net but a way of life for millions.

No it isn't, that's hysterical.

It is the single thing that needs addressing above and beyond all else. It is, quite simply, unsustainable.

It isn't really. Money lost from benefits fraud cost less than £1 billion per year. This is less than 1% of total welfare expenditure, and 1/700th of the total budget. Get a grip and stop reading the Daily Mail.

TSC I'll use that one.

wubbly

The attack on people on benefits is a red herring. They're an easy target, so the right-wing press likes to attack them.

According to the government, benefit fraud costs less than £1 billion annually. This is less than 1% of total expenditure on welfare. Put in perspective, it's a tiny tiny fraction of the government budget.

www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/BenefitFraud/DG_10014876

citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/tax-evasion-costs-treasury-15-times-more-than-benefit-fraud/a378274

In comparison, the amount lost to the treasury from tax avoidance and tax evasion is estimated to be £120 Billion. That is, over 120 times the amount lost from benefit fraud.

If we concede that tax avoidance is legal, but that perhaps tax law should be reformed, and take only tax evasion, which is illegal, then that costs at least £15 Billion or 15 times the money lost from benefit fraud.

This shows the breakdown of spending, according the Daily Mail

I'd love to know what percentage of the welfare bill actually goes to people who have never worked and refuse to work.

I believe it is a rather small proportion.

I think all benefits that aren't sickness related , such as jsa, should come in food voucher form. I cannot understand for the life of me why child benefit exists - why should you be paid to have a child!? Surely noone should have a child until they can feed, clothe and HOME themselves and the child rather than force the government/tax payers to do so for them. Obviously not all children are planned etc... hence safety net, not way of life.

So why would anyone work in Tescos then? What motivates those people who do work for minimum wage, do you think? Why aren't they all lapping up these glorious benefits and massive houses? Are they stupid?

Why would someone who leaves school without any qualifications bother to drag themselves through university, incurring massive debts in the process, when they could just stay on benefits, sitting on their arses in their fabulous free houses?

It makes no sense. Your argument doesn't add up.

But no party is committed to removing these outrages. They wouldn't be too difficult to do.

We could require people to work for benefits (those who are able).

We could reduce the size of the accommodation people can get benefits for.

We could ensure no one is worse off through working by some measures such as a universal credit to everyone in work or out which you keep whether you work or don't work.

I am certanily not suggesting benefit levels of income are fun to live on however. What we most need is what this Government is trying to do - to get the economy going again so that all the unemployed whether they like it or not are forced into jobs.

If you have no qualifications and the best you can do is earn minimum wage on the check out at Tesco or pulling pints in the local, then it's a bit of a no brainer that having a few kids and full benefits is a very nice option, thank you very much.

Most people fear redundancy because they DON'T earn that little and usually have mortgages that have to be paid.

Far too simplistic Nigella.

If it's really so glorious living on benefits, then why do so many people fear redundancy? Surely, we'd all be queing up to have our jobs taken away, so we can get a better house and have more children?

Or is that those who work are simply more moral than those who don't?

The welfare state is a monster we have created.
When you have a system where people earning 40K are getting tax credits then you know it's an obscenity.
When people on benefits are living in houses most ordinary working people could never afford, that's an obscenity.
When people are actively encouraged through financial incentives to have more and more children, that's an obscenity.
When the best way for a 16 year old girl with no qualifications to have a home of her own and money of her own is to get pregnant with a one night stand, that's an obscenity.

All hail New Labour and their Brave New World.

Obviously this isn't objective but the figures are true:

conservativehome.blogs.com/files/budget-in-context.pdf

where I'm from*

In response to whoever said the welfare state is a safety net - it hasn't been for a long time, it wrongly subsidises too many people's lives, it is a way of life, it is a complete leviathan of our own creation that should be feared not protected.

In response to it being a 'national outrage' that EMA was abolished... where I'm free it was an outrage that kids were paid to go to school.

It must be terribly relevant to you. Of course you can mention it. It puts everything else into perspective I am sure for us all. The principal difficulties most of us face in life are the same whatever we earn and whatever our politics and it must be very hard and not having much money can't make it any easier.

Yes, it is Xenia.
The welfare state is a bloated, abused mill stone around our collective necks.

It is no longer a safety net but a way of life for millions.
It is the single thing that needs addressing above and beyond all else. It is, quite simply, unsustainable.

Sorry, it wasn't really appropriate to chuck that comment in on here, it's all a bit raw at the moment, but no excuse.

The good thing is hope costs nowt!

I am a supporter of the NHS as are most Conservatives.

(wmb, that's awful, the thing I am most grateful about isn't money, job or any of that stuff, it's simply good health)

However none of that removes the fact the cupboard is bare and we can't pay teenagers money to go to school any more. If the measures work the economy will pick up and then there will be mroe jobs. That is the reality.

I am not happy with the budget in terms of cuts - there is a table in today's Times which says "In (money in ) Tax £589bn + 7.48% and Out (spending ) £710bn + 18%. I think that's awful - that we are spending so much more than we are getting in.

I remember when under a Tory Government we were paying back National Debt. Pity Gordon Brown sold most of our gold at the worst price possible. He did pay off the last of our debt from world war II it must be said and in times of growth it's easier to pay off debt. But we certainly have a huge black hole and if that means teenagers have to get a bike to school and work all day Saturday to fund their bus fares that's a wonderful way to give them a work ethic for life. Far too many of them are far too idle (and it's in the nature of a teenager to be so of course and I don't exclude any type of teenager from that - it spans all types).

The table also shows our debt interest up 13% (we spent £50bn on that) and defence £40bn (which I am sure as this is a female site largely most of us would rather have reduced by a large amount) That's not increasing which kind of means cut backs if we have over 4% inflation.

health we spend £126bn on (up 3.2%) and social security and services the biggest of anything £232b. Is that our nemesis - the huge spending on social security which is double the NHS spending? Educatino is £89bn.

Why don't you campaign for healthcare run as a business more on the European model than the US. Not wasteful and shit like the NHS. I pay 104 euros a month health insurance. Low earners pay on a sliding scale, welfare recipients don't pay and all children are free.

The NHS cannot continue in its present form.

Nigella, yup. But that's what we are heading for. Where one of my colleagues has a daughter who had a malignant mole six years ago. No health care provider will toucher her, so a third of his salary is saved in case she gets sick again. Maybe Xenia would approve, but it leaves him virtually nothing - and he is a university professor. The taxi driver I met driving a cab at night to pay for his wife's hospital stay - 2 DAYS - will be doing two jobs for six years. But Xenia and people like her will indeed get better care, after they have kicked all the sick and middle-income people out of the way. Unless of course YOU get sick with some illness health care providers won't touch, like cancer or MS.

The thing that really gets on my wick is all of you who think you ARE the people the Tories represent. How many of you have a gross income over 150k? No? Well, you're not the ones they are trying to help, then, and the pathetic aspirational voting my parents and in-laws do is just plain madness.

I would never ever want to see a health " care" system like that in the US.
No matter how flawed the NHS is, I am incredibly proud and thankful that we have it.
Wubbly, I'm sorry to hear that xx.

Oh yes Strix great. If you can afford it.

I am waiting with bated breath for the evidence that the private sector is, overall, better than the public sector. Overall.

Waiting.

Still waiting.

still waiting

Yes, Strix, if there is private healthcare and private schools and private universities, then these do provide better services for those who can afford them. The trouble is that the rest of society gets virtually no care at all. I lived in countries with this system and I know. I was one of the ones who benefited. Then suddenly I wasn't.

... wait - we do have private schools - and... erm.. yeah. Do you see now what I mean?