im so anxious about threats to cut ctc...

I know it because that was the environment in which I was raised and fought tooth and nail to escape.

I know it because I have taught in schools where familes have 3,4,5+ children and yet they have never worked.

lou, so sorry to hear about your DD.

hornofplenty, I'm not sure how you can know that.

The truth is it is easy to criticise people when we don't actually know their circumstances. There are many people in difficult circumstances through no fault of their own.

My DH has a reasonably well paid job, we get by, but things are very finely balanced. He is having to take a lot of time off because of my illness. I hope his previous excellent record holds him in good stead with his employers, but if redundancies come around, who can say?

"look how many people spend hundreds in IKEA each year updating their cushions"

Hehehe, very Mumsnet.

I don't think anyone would want to deny someone in your situation any help, but too many people without such problems have 3,4,5+ children at the tax payers expense.

flockwallpaper thank you for that thoughtful comment. Not that I need to justify myself to you, but:

DH worked full-time, I was a part-time RN. We had 2 children who were 2.7 and 12 mo. I fell pregnant with DD3 (very much wanted and planned, incidently). All was good. DD1 was a handful, but they all grow up, don't they?

At 9 weeks pregnant, preschool raised concern about DD1's development (previous concerns were written off by the HV team, and I was reassured that she was fine). Three weeks later she started to fall over for no reason.

To cut a long and emotionally draining story very short, DD1 was diagnosed with a brain malformation. She is not going to grow up in the same way as most children. The constant supervision she needed at 2.9 is still needed, in fact more so, at 4.6.

DH had to cut his hours to a 4 day week, and I had to stop work. I spend a lot of my time sorting out the provision for DD1 and liaising with health professionals, education etc.

So, we went from an income of over 25K to DH's income of 14.5K plus Carer's Allowance for me, as DD1 gets High Rate Care component of DLA.

I hope that illustrates how a family can go from getting minimal tax credits to relying on them as a major source of income.

I don't know whether there can be a system whereby people who already have their tax credits can keep them. So if you have got your mortgage, planned your budget you can keep the tax credits. But from Tuesday the till is shut unless you fall under a certain income.

It is not about saying the poor can't have chidren but we all have to cut our cloth accordingly.

My family income is considerably higher than 17K but there is not way on earth we could afford three children so don't have that many.

Oh yes.....lets restrict children for the poorer in society. Maybe sterilisation. FFS.

Why the f**k have three kids when your household income is £17K. Some people need to belt up and take responsibility for themselves.

Xenia - yes its usually the women who are targeted isnt it as they earn less.

I earn nearly double what my DH does so it will be him giving up work probably if tax credits and CB go. He has actually said he is fine to do this but other people seem horrified at it (usually the same ones who berate me for having a career).

There are two opposing kinds of economists on this point. No one really knows which are right. You spend and spend on the one hand and that ensures you aren't immediately into huge recession in the hope you make the recession not as bad - we've been doing that or you don't pour any more money into the economy and let it right itself.

Economists fundamentally disagree on it or rather the extent of intervention.
Depends how Keynsian you are -en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics

But all our political parties are much the same in the UK so I don't think there is a huge distance between Labour and the Tories on most of these points.

Because there are two views - spend your way out of a recession or not. No one really knows which works best. I think the spending route is more dangerous.

Are they Riven? I avoid the papers as much as possible, too depressing.

It seems that the only message is that is that there is no alternative to these sweeping cuts. Funny that, when 2 out of 3 parties disagreed with that prior to the GE, along with a number of respected economists. All of a sudden, despite the figures looking better than expected, the overwhelming message is one of doom and gloom and a life changing time for us all.

It's a relief to hear that there are still some who believe that we don't need to make such swingeing cuts. Not that it will make any difference I suppose.

I'm sorry, wubblybubbly. There just seems to be so much denial of Labour's role - five out of five Labour leadership candidates state that Labour did nothing wrong - that I tend to jump to conclusions when I see the global recession being blamed.

If they cut the tc will it be both types?My friend is a single parent and works but her rent is 850 and her nursey is 800 a month and without TCs she's in trouble but her salary is just about 30k?

It's VAT on gas & electric that worries me.

There's been no mention of increasing it from the current 5% but it was a tory government that introduced it and, I believe, wanted to increase to the full 17.5%. I just hope they don't usher it in under some sort of 'green' credentials.

I totally agree, I work in a school that has quite a few pregnant staff, I am not sure how many of those will return to work.

It is a bad state of affairs when people who have what you would think were perfectly good and reasonably paid jobs may have to stop work as they won't be able to afford it!

To keep labour in power.

I don't think it really matters if something is a benefit or a tax allowance. It is all just money and there is no one category which is good and one which is bad. It's a neutral issue which category you put it into.

They are not likely to remove them from those under £26k. I am pretty certain of that. But VAT iwll go up which will not help the poor unless they just spend on food and children's clothes. Stick with rice and potatoes and avoid cakes and you'll avoid VAT I think.

There will be freezing too of benefits and allowances and whether that matters depends on inflation but at least it is not money directly taken

Why were they introduced at all over say 25k? What made the labour govt think that it was a good iea to suddenly add to a perfectly average income?It is such a ridiculous system.

I always saw them as a benefit and for the very brief time that we were entitled it never entered my head to claim them.