To think the govt are purposefully trying to keep the poor down?

[Alltheseboys]

Seems like with all these cuts the govt are deliberately trying to keep the working class down?

But then why should any government be expected to top up income? Wages should be sufficient or tax should be lowered rather than create a dependency.

Tax credits are fucking nonsense. Why tax people and then give some of it back, and expect them to be grateful for it? Why not just tax them less, and do away with all the bureaucracy needed to process tax credits?

you are still getting schooling, healthcare, police etc etc etc even if you are not getting tax credits

What are they supposed to cut though? To encourage the top earners to move abroad and stop paying the 28% of tax would leave us well & truly stuffed. This group of people on the whole don't rely on public services to the same extent as the rest of us so any cuts won't affect them because they have little to cut (private education, healthcare etc).

The welfare system needs reforming; nothing the government can do will please anyone. The economy is the possibly biggest threat to the security of the UK so doing nothing is not an option.

Trident, invading other countries, foreign aid to countries with nuclear weapons like Pakistan for starters.

YYY KalSkirata.

Public sector wages are about 30% of the annual UK government budget it is a huge target for a government who wants to reduce spending

There is a very interesting analysis in the FT today about how the younger working generations are losing out to the older, especially the recently-retired.

Makes the point that politicians want to keep the older voters sweet because they are more likely to vote. But that this is leading to a big mismatch in distribution of the cuts in gov't spending.

And meanwhile Gordon Brown and Tony Blair laugh all the way to the bank.

What was/is the alternative the spending simply could not carry on at the rate it was going. I am sorry but I am not prepared to sell my childrens souls to the devil to fund the mistakes of today or the pensioners.

I think they may have a problem on their hands once they start paying those in the North less than those in the South, for doing the same job. Not a particularly clever move, politically or financially.

Well said GRAG! You work hard all your life but when you need the govt. help your not entitled to it! It's a ridiculous system

Plenty of people do the same job in the north and are paid less than those in London and the SE.

heswall - stupid austerity measures strangle economic growth. Look at Greece and Ireland. We are actually spending more as a country, not less, because we have 2.7m unemployed (and many more under-employed, i.e. only able to find part-time work when they need full-time). George Osborne's short-sighted austerity drive is costing us dearly.

There is a North South divide already and rightly so, I thought house prices up here were mental and they are at 10 times the average salary for a first time buyers home in a non crack den area, however half the problem is that council pay out so much in rent to housing benefit tenants that the property market has gone nuts. However when we looked to move down south the prices left me speechless. A teacher, nurse, bus driver wouldn't have a hope in hell of owning a property in Devon for example. And how people raise families in London I don't know you can't all be bankers can you ?

YANBU

It's the Tories, that's what they do.

YABU.
Every time something like this happens there will be people whining "tories hate the poor, they are millionaires," the usual old stereotypes etc etc. No mention of the excess of fuck ups made by Labour.

cinnamonnut- we have the same people in power who didnt want the minimum wage.

for that alone those who voted for them should be ashamed.

These fuckwits don't give a flying fuck about the deficit they just want to privatise everything and make it impossible to have any kind of recourse. Actions speak for themselves.
Things are going to be so very very bad.

Labour were big "class deniers" (Hazel Blears comments are fascinating) and I think that was detrimental to the working class and the poor generally. It was also a device for victim blaming (remember Brown and his proposals for what to do about the 50,000 worst families?). So the start point for the rhetoric was pretty shitty. If you 'blame' only one party for what all Govts have been doing for over a decade now, then the risk is that future choices may be made on myth/spin not actual record.

Also I think that when the money runs out, choices do become harsher. If you increase payments to the relatively poor when times are good, but have no reserves, then when the money suddenly runs out it, then it may be those increased payments which have to go first.

No-one has put forward a credible economic plan with an alternative programme. The Labour opposition has admitted it would be making much the same cuts in much the same places.

YABU.

To put it in a way easy to understand, if you give every "poor" person a million pounds, it does not make them rich - it means that the better off are simply worth ten million plus.

If the UK were to default that would be it, no more deficit, nada, niks. The government could only spend the tax revenues it receives. That'd be quite an eye-opener for you and would put your surestart/swimming pool into perspective!

I'm also a bit perplexed as to why anyone can say "taking it away from the poor" e.g., wrt "tax credits". Of course the "rich" aren't losing them, they're not fucking claiming them. You'd be up in fucking arms if they were!

I could tolerate being nicer to the rich if the rich actually spent some of their money here and could use some of their vast wealth to bankroll job creation particulars in sectors which are necessary but not particualy profitable in the short-medium term.

But many are experts at tax avoidance and have much of it abroad. The rich stay rich simply because cost of living makes up a relatively small amount of monthly expenditure when compared to taxes and expenses connected to property for instance.

One thing is for certain, if the government can make good it's intention to close tax loopholes the the money gained would be much more than what is currently lost in benefit fraud. And those that do leave wont be missed much since they weren't spending any money here after all.

Geeklove, well said and just what I was about to put!