To think capping child tax credits at two children will plunge more families into poverty

[SoonToBeSix]

Can't link but article is in the Daily Fail. A Tory mp has proposed capping child benefit and child tax credits at two children in order to win votes.
What happens to those children whose parents circumstances change ie redundancy or there is a contraception failure?
This government is taking welfare cuts too far while continuing to let the very rich avoid paying the correct taxes.

[littlemisssarcastic]

I didn't say 'related benefits', I said CA. It would be foolish to suggest anyone could care for anyone else on absolutely no money at all.

Anyway, how you manage all of that on £59.75 a week is beyond me.

I wonder what would make the govt sit up and listen?
Maybe once carers have worked out the answer to that question, they could implement it and get the govt to listen, as they appear to do with pensioners.

[pumpkinsweetie]

Happymummyofone No-one chooses to have a disabled or ill child, and looking after them themselves saves the government £thousands-Fact!

Empathy is very much needed here!

[littlemisssarcastic]

Unfortunately, healthy babies aren't guaranteed.

[LadyRabbit]

Have not read entire thread. But when oh when will everyone wake up and remember that by far the largest welfare spend is on PENSIONS. Not feckless single mothers with 8 children by 9 fathers etc., etc. so who the fuck is going to pay for all those people who are depending on state pensions and nothing else to see them through old age? That's right. All these kids nobody can afford (apparently) and that cost the tax payer much less than their Daily Fail reading brains tell them they do.

The larger issue is our older population. And successive governments utterly atrocious management of pensions funds etc.

My child benefit was taken away but I don't begrudge those who are still getting it. Why penalise the children who have no say in their being born? Especially when they will have to work til they drop dead because there will be no such thing as pensions even though they will probably pay way more NI than my generation will.

[littlemisssarcastic]

Well said LadyRabbit.

[LadyRabbit]

It's like a massive state sanctioned Ponzi scheme where the newest entrants (in this case UK children) get shafted.

[pumpkinsweetie]

Hear Hear LadyRabbit, i don't begrudge the elderly but the fact remains no cut backs have yet been made in regards to state pensions. Although there is a high population of them that have never even worked their entire lifes, yet the government is quite happy to keep paying out for their share and chooses to penalise children instead, when the money that will be saved will be a tiny drop in the ocean!

[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight]

Nicely put ladyrabbit

[littlemisssarcastic]

Agree with pumpkin too.

[Rufustherednosedreindeer]

Out of curiosity how high is the proportion of pensioners that have never worked pumpkin

Does anyone know? Because I'm not sure it's that high, but I've never seen any figures

[Rufustherednosedreindeer]

And I know pensions make up the vast majority of the welfare budget

It's just I'm looking forward to getting mine, even though it will be means tested and probably only get me a cup of coffee in 25 years time

[WooWooOwl]

I don't think the point about pensioners is at all relevant.

There are major differences between pensioners and people of working age that don't work despite there being no one with a long term illness or disability in their household.

We all hope to be pensioners one day. We don't all hope to be in a position where we don't work.

That's why the pension bill is so much higher.

The vast majority of us pay income tax and national insurance, and the vast majority of us will be pensioners some day. It is an entirely fair state benefit.

[Rufustherednosedreindeer]

I don't think its relevant either

Which is why I was curious as to the amount of all the non working pensioners and why exactly we should be cutting back on pensions

[LadyRabbit]

It is relevant in so far as pensions are in reality funded by a combination of a pension claimant's NI / tax contributions AND current NI / tax contributions from the working population. Because governments have basically been doing a Robert Maxwell over the years so in most cases there is no way one person's entire lifetime NI contributions and tax could cover everything they have taken out of the system. (If we are working on the assumption that the individual has been an average wage earner for their working life, used the state school system and the NHS. ) Therefore that money has to come from the following generations. Crudely put, the old are eating the young. It is also one of the reasons why the government doesn't want to admit it needs immigration (albeit of the working non claiming kind) in order to sustain this folly before it all collapses. Nobody is suggesting cutting pensions - dear God, how could they be any lower? And means testing them stinks because that is basically saying to current generations that they are giving their NI away with no hope of ever getting anything back.

What is utterly utterly pointless is penalising children who don't ask to be born. People had children when they couldn't afford them well before the welfare state existed (remember workhouses anybody?) and they will continue to do so, child benefit or no child benefit. What are we supposed to do? Let them all starve? Moreover, it is important that we do all we can to stop with this distorted view that the child benefit bill is so enormous that cutting it will make a massive difference to welfare costs. It won't. It will be a drop in the ocean.

I don't know what the answer is. None of us here do, otherwise I sincerely hope if you did you'd be doing something to fix the mess we're in. What we can do, however, is stop getting a stick out to beat people with over their life choices. That really doesn't help either.

[ShylaMcClaus]

I had a parent who was in hospital for a year with occasional days off. No cognitive function at all - zero. No mobility either, just lying there having meds for various minor conditions and being hydrated and fed until it was damaging and they were withdrawn.

It must have cost an absolute fortune! Far more than they had ever paid in just for that year, let alone the benefits of the NHS they had reaped during the seventy years preceding.

[ShylaMcClaus]

Oh, and the other parent was furious when the DLA stopped despite it being awarded for the extra costs of having someone with a severe impairment in the home. Not hospital.

And even after death that their state pension was stopped. Had been used to saving it up.

If you want to discuss spoiled, ignorant, selfish and entitled people, look up a generation.

[merrymouse]

Don't think of child benefit so much as supporting feckless parents as supporting future tax payers.

Child benefit lasts for 16 years. Hopefully if you invest a bit of money during that time things balance out over the following 7 decades. What next - no school or medical treatment for 3rd children?

[merrymouse]

Also, the fact that somebody might think that they will be quids in if they have another baby because of all the benefits doesn't actually mean that they have made an educated judgement and have done the maths and they will be better off.

On the other hand some people have children knowing that they will struggle hoping that somehow things will get better, but that would suggest that they would have more children with or without benefits.

[dreamingofsun]

ladyrabbit - within the bounds of legality i have no problem with people making their own lifestyle choices - obviously. what some people are objecting to on here though is that they have to cover the cost of someoone else's choice. And is you are already struggling a bit, this must be especially galling

[merrymouse]

You have to cover the cost eventually in the long term whether you pay child benefit or not. You don't have to like or approve of somebody to see that their lack of access to food, housing and other basics affects all of us.

[merrymouse]

David Cameron doesn't seem to have much if he found himself unexpectedly unemployed and his wife couldnt work what would he do? Is it only the presence of the family fortune that makes his life style choice of 3 children OK?

(To be fair he hasn't openly supported this idea).

[merrymouse]

Aaagh stupid phone!

"David Cameron doesn't seem to have much job security".

[CustardoPaidforIDSsYFronts]

well said ladyrabbit

[merrymouse]

Also stupidly forgot - most people in receipt of child benefit do work.

Just to reimagine that. DC loses job, Bottom falls out of luxury goods market and SC gets some hours working at tesco's (on tills, not shelf stacking as prior retail experience in mum's shop). Family fortune has mysteriously vanished. Takes a while for DC to find new job.

Why wouldn't you take into account their third child when calculating the benefits they need?

[fluffyraggies]

Not inclined to political argument, just reading the thread and feel very :( to see children described as peoples 'mistakes', and a child's existence being referred to in terms of being someone's 'fault'.

Benefits for families were introduced to improve/sustain the quality of life of the children born into those families that qualified.

Surely the basic principal that drove the enlightened introduction of these benefits so long ago (mainly against the will of the wealthy) will never change - and that is:

children are not at fault for being born. They should not suffer a lack of basics as a consequence of their parents circumstances. And that poverty breeds poverty.

I feel as a society we are stepping backwards :(