Does anyone elsee agree with the benefit cuts?

Indeed baking that was my point. It's there as a safety net but is abused. This is not benefit bashing. It just is abused. That needs to be made harder.
The days when someone stays on benefits for years on end need to stop. If you don't think this happens you didn't grow up on the estate I did.

If people are vilified for being poor Eyja then that would include workers and those on benefits alike. That's why the cap was proposed, some people on benefits are earning more than workers. If you mean the underclass consisting of people who swear at their kids, have 'f**k off' tattooed on their knuckles and own pitbulls, yep, they exist and I personally vilify them. Sorry, but active citizenship is about having rights and responsibilities to your fellow citizens and doing the best for your families. Being anti-social and getting paid for the privilege is just out of order.

I think cuts are inevitable whether you agree with them or not, year on year the NHS costs us more, mass unemployment especially in the 16-24 catergory, an increasingly ageing population to find pensions for , obviously money is going to have to be trimmed from somewhere to keep the majority of our basic services going and increasing taxes is never a popular option.

I'm no evil Tory but we do have to consider whether the country can sustain the benefits system in it's present guise, capping certain benefits is a step in the right direction. Why is it that benefit cuts equate to almost instant poverty, when you take into consideration HB, council tax exemption, and all the other top up benefits for certain claimants it is more beneficial not to work, i'm not saying all claimants are milking the system but to suggest there is no abuse of the system is also wrong

Yes the benefits system was not perfect.
I wholeheartedly disagree that having a benefits system perpetuates the notion of an underclass, even as it was. An underclass is a group of people who are vilified for extended and intractable poverty and prevented from getting out of it by being unable to access things which those of other means take for granted. I think we are a few steps closer to enlarging and solidifying that group, which has been limited so far to a tiny, tiny proportion of the population (yes it is) and the odd made up tabloid article.

Agree MrsRufallo. My cousin get's £700 per month DLA and ESA for depression (as well as HB, CTB etc). He is single, 27 and was actually much happier when he had his job. He quit the job because he was better off on benefits and was paying 'too much tax', not because it was affecting his mental health.

I work p/t 3 days a week and also make £700 per month after £100 is taken in tax. Out of this I pay £400 rent and have £300 left over for bills etc. It's enough to make me depressed! Isn't this the grinding poverty benefits supporters are up in arms about?

Cousin is off to LA next month for a week! High times for some.

Up the income tax threshold to £10k, cap benefits at £26k and stop wasting money on high speed rail links that nobody wants.

"a hell of a lot of money is wasted, taxes are being evaded and bankers who brought the country close to collapse are now enjoying massive bonus's"

I agree with most of this. There is lots of wastage. Tax evasion is already illegal (whereas avoidance is perfecty legal). I agree with trying to clamp down on tax avoidance but it isn't quite as simple as many people seem to imagine - taxation in the UK is particularly comlicated and it isn't simply a matter of some administator crossing out loopholes with a stroke of his pen....

As for bankers... I understand your sentiments entirely, but, again, it's a complicated issue. The new RBS boss may be getting what seems to us an obscenely large bonus - but he could also potentially save the country billions of pounds, if he manages to turn RBS around. And if you have to pay someone a few million to gain a few billion, it doesn't seem so bad in that context. And financial services contribute 12% of the total tax take in the UK - £63 billion last year, part of which is made up of the 50% tax on bankers bonuses. Basically, we need the banking industry to pay our bills although I would be the first to admit that we need to rebalance the economy so that we are not so highly reliant on one sector.

Eyja the benefits systems perpetuates the idea of an underclass. Social mobility is about people being helped by the state to become self-sufficient citizens and using benefits when necessary as a temporary measure, not a lifestyle.

Agreeing with benefits cuts doesn't equate to having no social conscience.

Yes
I think anything which works effectively towards creating and maintaining an underclass is a good idea. Then, no matter what goes wrong in trade/housing/the NHS/general health/literacy etc there will be a solid group of people to blame.

I've often thought that the barrier to economic development, as shown in the US up until recently, was that we don't have a huge group of desperate people to exploit, as they did with Mexicans amongst others. Well, we soon will have. I think the Tories have shown massively big balls in sorting it so quickly and really with minimum backlash.

tough but necessary

As for the Vodaphone tax bill - I don't know what their full tax liability was when they settled with HMRC - and neither does anyone else here, I would wager.

HS2 - infrastructure investment. Opinion polls suggest majority support for the concept.

Olympics - bid won under Labour government. I think it will cost a lot more than it brings in - but I think the country would lose out substantially more by backing out at this late stage or even just staging a "bargain basement" version. We;'re stuck with it and have to make the best of it to accrue as many benefits from it as possible (even if I expect it will be a net financial loss, we might as well try to minimise that loss).

molepom - I'm interested to know how you feel you have a better grasp of the state of the country's finances than the Chief Secretary to the Treasury? Or might it just possibly be wishful thinking? ("I know there must be a Magic Money Tree around here somewhere.....")

The gov seem to find money when it suits them.

Why are we wasting a shed load of money on this stupid high speed rail train thing?

I may be looking at this in the wrong sense but in the home when finances are strained you start with the basics, you make sure your rent and bills are paid, then you buy food, then you put petrol in the car, then if there is anything left over you can get extra's like clothes or luxuries or use it to pay off debt.

Maybe the gov should look at the country like this? although I guess then that would be their discression to decide what is essential and what isnt.

All I know is that benefits seems to be the scape goat in all of this when in fact a hell of a lot of money is wasted, taxes are being evaded and bankers who brought the country close to collapse are now enjoying massive bonus's.....whats fair in all of that. I think people would have a lot more respect for the gov if they were seen to be addressing those issues as well as the benefit ones.

"All I'm going to say is I find it disturbing that Rolls Royce are reporting their highest sales figures ever."

Because, we don't really need that extra £49milllion in corporation tax receipts, do we? (And that's on top of the £180 million tax paid in the previous year). Oh, and doesn't include tax from VAT on UK sales and income tax from Rolls Royce employees....

And as for unpaid tax from corporations - first, if it was that easy for governments to close tax loopholes, don't you think they would do it? I believe the UK has the longest tax code in the world (but am prepared to be corrected on that one) and that complexity explains, at least in part, why there is so much tax avoidance and why it is hard to clamp down on it. (Also, no accountant worth his salt would fail to point out ways in which a company could - legally - minimise its tax liability. That's part of his/her job).

Second, I posted about this on another thread but, basically, the higher corporation tax, the more incentivised companies are to find ways to avoid it - perhaps through restructuring so many of the profits are diverted overseas to tax havens like Switzerland and the Channel Isles, perhaps by relocating physically, or perhaps by choosing to invest elewhere in the first place.

Third, the last government had 13 years to address tax avoidance issues. What did they do about it? Or is it just easier and more comfortable to blame to "evil Tories"?

"Note from Liam Byrne (Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury) to his successor: "I'm afraid to say, there is no money left". May 2010."

Ohh look, we've found enough for a new rail line that no-one really needs though and let me look at the figures...yep, yep, yes we CAN afford to let Vodafone off with not paying thier tax bill so we're alright Jack.

There's no money my ARSE. There is, they are just spending it on the wrong things as usual.

There is plenty of money around. just not in the public purse we gave it all to the banks

Except bradbourne, all those billions in unpaid tax. Oh and those millions for that rail link, and the Olympics. Yup, no money left indeed.

I definitely agree with the benefits and HB cap. But the government needs to build more council houses. It's a disgrace that private landlords are getting fat off the taxpayer and benefit claimants are being housed in fancy, private houses that most taxpayers could never afford to live in.

I don't agree with the closing of libraries and other civic services and the firing of NHS front-line staff. It's well known that there aren't enough nurses, etc, and to get rid of them at this time of a growing/aging population is insanity.

Note from Liam Byrne (Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury) to his successor: "I'm afraid to say, there is no money left". May 2010.

As far as I know, we are still waiting to discover the Magic Money Tree.

There is no money left.

enough already. Gah

No.
HTH

Do you mean you support the benefits cap?
Because surely if you support all benefit cuts you support cutting DLA?
Which, you know, would be nonsense when it's going to cost the country more than it saves, drive some people to suicide and others into grinding poverty when they're seriously ill and completely unable to work even if they wanted to.
I'm sure you can't mean you support all the cuts? Unless, maybe, you're Rod Liddle?

I agree that an able-bodied household should not, as a general rule, be able to have a higher income by remaining at home than it would do if one or both adults went out to work. (I accept that there may be exceptional cases where a higher income may be appropriate, but as a eneral principle, I think it is right.)

As for disabled people - yes, of course they should be protected as far as possible where their condition prevents (or a family member) from being to able to work or where their condition incurrs additional living expenses.

Yes to the benefits and HB cap, £26k is plenty. No to DLA cuts and any cuts to civic services.

Yes to £10k income tax threshold.

Tax evasion by big businesses and banker's bonuses concern me more than benefits claimants though.