David Cameron welfare reforms-no family will receive more than £25,000 a year.

[Hammy02]

Good idea? I think so. I can't believe a single family receives this much already in benefits. It is about the same as the average income so it would be ridiculous for any one family to have more in benefits than someone that works?

I would love to know what the righteous poster was doing opening the mail and reading it even if it was delivered by mistake....if it was clearly his mail then you shouldn't have opened it morally and legally!
I hate it when people spout this kind of BS, this kind of tabloid scaremongering causes real damage to the vast majority of people who are legitimately claiming DLA. Anybody who has been through the ATOS assessment process would be able to tell u it's no picnic and in many cases degrading and humiliating. Yes a small amount of people abuse DLA but they get a disproportionate amount of press the Actual main waste of this particular benefit is by their own admission maladministration (but then that wouldn't be as righteously newsworthy)

But isn't it Landlords who are cashing in via housing benefit? The claimant doesn't get the money, the Landlords do and the state is paying for their very valuably Capital Asset. I think the cap should be on housing benefit, e.g a fair rent paid in benefits then all the buy to let millionaires will have to get working tenants to pay their inflated rents or charge a realistic rent.

I work full time and my family income is well below £25K. Thankfully my mortgage is low, so I can afford to work, ironic isn't it. If I was renting and my rent was higher than mortgage which it would be then I would have to get housing benefit which would push up my income from the state.

"If hard choices are to be made then why not this one?"
Because no-one would pay it, and whichever government introduced it would be voted out at the first possible opportunity. There would likely be some kind of coup d'etat or revolution. It's just an insane idea that no political party would ever consider as being reasonable. What people would actually be in favour of it?

adamschic i was a working tenant and still entitled to HB. also, where do you suggest i go if the HB is capped and my landlord evicts me? there aren't enough HA places to go around as it is.

"I hate it when people spout this kind of BS, this kind of tabloid scaremongering causes real damage to the vast majority of people who are legitimately claiming DLA."
No, the amount of abuse of the system causes real damage to the people who are legitimately claiming DLA. Ruthlessly weed out the chancers and let it be known that anyone claiming DLA is absolutely 100% entitled to it. Then there will not be massive amounts of distrust and resentment towards people claiming DLA and IB.

I'm not being argumentative for the sake of it, there are so many holes in your argument I'm lucky I don't suffer from trypophobia!

You say he was fit enough to ride a bike. But you're not a doctor.
You say he has never worked a day in his life, but you've not read his CV.
YOu say he was claiming DLA for being a drug addict, but we've just established this is an impossibility.
You say he was a scumbag, - well was he?
You say he was earning more than you were in a week, but fail to explain how you could possible know this.

I wouldn't support 100% inheritance tax and it isn't for selfish reasons. I have almost nothing. I doubt there would be enough to dispose of my body without a proper funeral. One of the reasons I stopped myself killing myself, didn't want to be a burden in death as well as in life.

"You say he was fit enough to ride a bike. But you're not a doctor.
You say he has never worked a day in his life, but you've not read his CV.
YOu say he was claiming DLA for being a drug addict, but we've just established this is an impossibility.
You say he was a scumbag, - well was he?
You say he was earning more than you were in a week, but fail to explain how you could possible know this.!
I saw him riding the bike nearly every day.
He told me himself that he had never worked. He was only in his early 20s at the time. He didn't look like the sort of person that employers would want to employ.
He was a drug addict and he was recieving DLA due to drug use having rendered him unfit for work.
He was an absolute scumbag. In and out of jail for burglary, domestic violence, drug offences, and god knows what else.
I knew it because I saw the letter from the DHSS. I also knew how much I earnt at the time.

rob you saw 1 letter.

Oh the reason my mortgage is so low is because I struggled, sacrificed and worked hard to pay it 20 years ago.

Same as my parents did so that when they died they left their children some money. Would have rather had my parents still here though.

There is money to pay for the deserving poor so can we not be arguing about this. Governments have to pay for people who cannot help themselves by working. So a few druggies or people with blisters slip through the net, so what, if it means that people who need it get it. Also would anyone of us who works hard want to swap places with someone living in social housing and getting £65 a week? I wouldn't and don't personally care if that is their choice, I'm pleased that their DC's are being looked after by the state, well to a basic level.

That's how I ended up with a low mortgage adams well not quite 20 years. lost it all though :(. Sometimes all the hard work in the world means bugger all.

StarlightMcKenzie You should read up on 'property rights', in the economic sense.

If a country removes people's rights to own what they have earned/created/inherited, you end up with nothing. No one is incentivised to be resourceful or productive, businesses withdraw and anyone capable of creating wealth leaves and takes what they've got with them.

That's not conservative posturing, or whatever other political label you might choose to give it, it's simple fact and has been proven regularly in history.

Simply commandeering property/wealth does NOT work.

on one of the many threads about this topic a while ago someone posted a link to the statistics on how much money is spent on benefit fraud in comparison to unpaid taxes/tax avoidance and administration errors. it was shocking.

dave is certainly pissing on the wrong fire.

Booyhoo, then I presume your bill to the state didn't exceed 25K if you were working?

I'm not critising you btw, I am saying that the sum of 25K sounds like a lot of money but a fair proportion is going to landlords some of whom are profiteering from the system, not to the pockets of the families who have to claim it. I do realise that Mrs Thatcher's legacy created this situation, but it could be remedied if and housing benefit caps could force landlords to reduce rents. Will take a long time and no-one should be forced onto the streets.

xstitch there before the grace of god go I and anyone of us.

I doubt very much it would have much impact on the level of rents. People will end up in card board boxes or families of 4/5 people in bedsits with shared facilities rather than having a couple of bedrooms.

I honestly don't think that will happen. It's very difficult to evict a residential tenant and the landlord would rather have some rent coming in to cover their mortgage than nothing. Also should keep house prices down for people who want to actually live in their own homes rather than inflating them for buy to let etc. I live in an area of holiday homes so that is a triple wammy!

i recieved HB, free prescriptions, glasses, dental care, WTC and CTC. it didn't exceed £25K but i had only one child at the time. with a family of 4 or 5 children differing in gender and ages, a larger house would be needed which would cost more money. if their HB was capped as you say and their LL evicted them, what would they do? their income would surely need to exceed 25K to be able to survive.

I don't think people should be having 4 or 5 children unless they know they have enough money to provide for them without relying on benefits. There's simply no reason for it in this day and age.

As I said eviction would be very difficult and ll would have to give.

I also receive all of the things you have said apart from the HB and the only way my benefit bill would be anything like 25K even with a few more kids would be if HB was high.

In my area anyone in private high rents are moved to social housing fairly quickly and this is in an area where most of the council housing stock was sold off, (thanks to Mrs T) and is now privately rented!!!

RobF just sod off with your "unless they can afford it" crap. seriously, i am guessing you are an intelligent educated observant adult who has read a newspaper recently or watched a news report. do you honestly think it is unlikely that a person who has worked hard all their lives can be made redundant? do you think that doesn't happen? because i have seen it. so many times in teh last two years i have seen people i know and love queuing up in the benefits office for teh first time in tehir lives because there was just no more work for them. people who coudl alwyas find work and tehre they are swallowing tehir pride and accepting that they wont get work anytime soon.

'I don't think people should be having 4 or 5 children unless they know they have enough money to provide for them'

It is completely possible for a high earning family to suddenly fall on hard times through a multitude of ways. What are they supposed to do? We cannot see the future, there are no guarantees that a family will remain solvent.

What I mean is, no-one without independent means (ie, they will still be ok even if made redundant) should be having large families. It's just taking the piss to make the choice to have tons of kids and then expect the taxpayer to pick up the slack. There were reasons in the past for people to having lots of kids, those reasons are not there today. People should have 2 and then stop. 3 at a push.

1)4 or 5 children is not tons of children.

2. independant means? so what, people should have X amount of money (very interested to know how much you think X should be per child)saved up before having children and then they should not touch it until their chidlren are trhough uni. but they also should have a crystal ball and know taht if tehy do get made redundant tehy they will be out of work for Y amount of time? they should also not have any life altering events happen like a relative needing 24 hour care paid for or their mortgage rate going through trh roof meaning tehy need to dip into the redundancy fund.

Also Rob get a reality check, shock horror, people who cannot afford 3 kids actually have them anyway. Also a family that could afford it once might lose their breadwinners income, then what??

The one thing I do love about this miserable society is that we put food in the mouths of babes no matter what their parents situation.

I only had one child as I could only afford one as a single mum, my choice, my life and I wanted to give my one and only the best I could. She would have loved a sibling, over anything tbh.