Hey Mr Cameron, What's the BIG idea?

[TessOfTheDinnerbells]

I am not usually a political animal, hence the AIBU posting here rather than on any other. Just wondering if anyone else sees it the same way really.

So, after listening for days now about how the lower earners are paying their taxes in order to support the CB payments to the HIGHER TAX payers and that we should all be getting out into our communities and volunteering....

I am left wondering & worried, especially after last nights Question Time, that the most senior political figures in our country repeatedly commented, (with some conviction), that the lower earners are paying taxes to support the benefit payments to the HIGHER earners! It just doesn't stack up really does it? Anyone earning over the £50k mark ends up paying (and contributing to the country's economy) more in taxes and deductions than most people actually manage to earn! So how do they get to this STATISTICAL WONDER? Is anyone else worried that their mathematical ability is a little on the dodgy side or worry that it is just a pre-cursor to divide and conquer the classes?

Or is it a ploy to get the lower paid or even unpaid to go out and feel better about themselves in the hope they might even stretch to lots of voluntary work, hense saving the country a packet (forgetting the potential that this might be a way get us to do their jobs for them and absolve them from any social responsibilities too!).

My husband pays more in tax a year than I used to earn in a year when I was working.
I would say he was contributing far more than I ever was.

Yes, same here.

Just don't see why, if they really are aiming the "extra burden" at those that "can afford it". Then what about those working, paying higher taxes and without a wife/partner and kids to support?

Just stinks of taxing children really.

And the volunteering? (actually already do some). But the government telling us to get out into society and do something? Free labour to cover redundencies and budget cuts ploy?

Some of those working, without kids to support do resent paying taxes to support children. There was a caller on Woman's Hour today making that point. They also resent the fact that they not receive extra benefits and tax breaks, but pay taxes so that families can have them. Where I used to work there was huge resentment amongst some child-free women that women with families were entitled to an extra (taxed) allowance for childcare. They just considered it an unearned bonus, and therefore unfair.

The fact is we live in a society, not a hotel where we each pay for exactly what we use.

We all pay to maintain some sorts of standard of living for everyone, and some of us pay more, some less. It may be rough justice that some of us lose a benefit here, a tax break there. But one person's idea of unfair is certainly another person's idea of justice.