To ask what you would cut if you were David Cameron?

[Seeingthebeautyineveryminute]

Can't for the life of me see how £12 billion savings are going to be made. I fear it will be cuts to already diminished support and services (as opposed to increased taxation). If you were David Cameron what would you do?

Increasing the minimum wage does not replace tax credits for pt workers. I earn above NMW but get TC because I work PT and require childcare in order to do so.

Increasing the tax allowance increases the tax allowance for everyone, not just low earners or families and whilst nice woukd surely be more expensive than targeted TC.

And as for PP who said high earmers pay 50p in the pound. Clearly they don't understand how taxation works. If vourse they don't pay 50p for every pound they earn. They get the same tax allowances as everyone else. The high rate only comes in from money earned after their income passes the threshold.

Working tax credits should go - employers should be forced to pay a living wage.

Child benefit restricted to two children only and none to kids who don't live in the UK.

No benefits to migrants until they have worked here for say three years.

I think to save the 12m one of the larger benefts such as child benefit will be what DC targets.

David Cameron said more than once that they had no plans to change Child Benefit which makes me think that it will be the tax credits that will be cut. They have to be really. Somebody was talking on a thread about getting thousands in tax credits. I didn't realise they were paying out thousands.

Tax credits have as good as gone anyway.
They won't scrap UC because it cost so much to set up.
Why they bothered nobody knows, if they had left tax credits alone they'd have enough for benefits and wouldn't have to cut.

Oh, ....wait a minute there's plenty for benefits but lets pay for wars and support the big companies to evade tax. Oh the double standards, it would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.

"Public sector workers should get statutory everything, holiday, SMP, mat. Leave - they make/ enforce the rules, so they should have to stick to them too." - Fluerchamp

When did road sweepers, refuse collectors and school caretakers make the rules?

You didn't realise they were paying thousands in TC?
Childcare pt for 2 dc cost 12000 p/a. TC covers part of that so naturally it runs into 1000s per year.
But that is an investment in women being able to remain in work force and pay more tax later.

Not to mention without TC many women in Abusive relationships would be forced to stay or plunge themselves and their dc into poverty.

If it were not for TC I would have had to give up work and claim benefits.

The Tory's say they make work pay. Scrapping the main working benefit, the thing that makes work pay, flies in the face of that.

not that I am saying the unspeakable cunts won't do it

If they have to pick on someone why not pick on people who do not work and will never work again. Pensioners. Oh right cos that's not fair better to pick on children instead.

They should stop trying to punish working families or pensioners and concentrate on getting more in in tax by growing wages.

Forcing companies to raise wages is a short term can kick exercise due to inevitable inflation that will kick in.

The argument that we should make companies pay more tax/wages ignore the fact that it's a globalised world and we are a small cog in that, there is only so much you can get before big business move to other EU countries that are aggressively trying to pry them away.

The trumpeted 'void' that this creates does not work in long established markets, you may pay more for your food/clothes/financial services but those who rely on cheap goods cannot.

However unpalatable if we want a long term solution we need to address wastage and collect/save money on both sides of the coin.

Conservatives are going to look at aggressive tax avoidence, but Unfortunetly need to look at streamlining and lowering the cost of benefits if we want our children to have a chance of having a future.

If they freeze CB and take away TC a lot of our dcs won't have a present let alone a future.

The reality is all this austerity is unnecessary and entirely prompted by ideology.

Cutting the deficit will save us very little money (in interest) compared to the amount that slashing public services will cost. (Yes it does cost- it costs the NHS, it reduces spend in the local economy etc).

They need to drive up tax revenue by getting the economy working. They won't do that by slashing benefits (which rarely works anyway as any savings are swallowed up by the increased cost of administering and policing the system). And they won't do it by driving people out of work. Nor by forcing people into zero hours contracts and pt jobs.

Sadly the Tory's record on the economy is not as good as they would like people to believe. Unless your idea of a healthy economy is one where big business pays no tax, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the number of children below the poverty line increases.

I think child benefit will be subsumed into Universal Credit. As you can't have assets of more than £16k and claim UC (unlike tax credits which have no upper capital limit at all) this means that no family with more than £16k of assets will get child benefit.

UC currently expected to roll out to families in 2016-17. At present it's only for single people, so child benefit hasn't been included.

Also, I think the promise that no current claimant of working tax credit/child tax credit will lose financially when they are moved onto UC, will be broken. I expect the govt to say that this will not apply to anyone with assets of more than £16k - hence lots of middle class families who currently get a "top-up" of their wages will suddenly not get any support at all.

Ian Duncan-Smith just been reappointed in the cabinet to drive through this long-term project.

Contribution-based jobseekers' allowance will be one of the first things to go, I reckon. You get six months before being means tested, by dint of having paid enough income tax and NI when you were last in work.

They make you suffer for your £73 a week, though. Anyway, I think it's for the chop. Can't have those scroungers who have paid tons of income tax and NI throughout their working lives living the easy life on £73 a week when they are made redundant, can we?

I agree with the universal credit prediction too. I think it will be zero benefits for anybody with assets over £16k (or whatever level is chosen).

The UC IT system is a bag of shit, though, so it won't be fully rolled out any time soon.

What a depressing thought.
It is such a shame too, that so many people who are just one or two unlucky events from needing help themselves are so keen to stick the boot in.

So many people on a site predominantly for women wanting to take away benefits from women and children (maternity, cb, tc) and from the sick.

Now is no time to get sick, old, to have kids, to be born or to be made redundant.

Yes, there are undoubtedly people who are lazy, people who skive off work and who make false claims. But they are a tiny minority. Most people work hard, or they would if there were jobs and child care, if they get ill they should not be punished. So many people so suspicious of the many because of a few bad eggs.

And the really horrible thing is that doing other people down makes them no better off. It is mostly just spite and the thought that someone might be getting something they are not

To ask what you would cut if you were David Cameron?

My wrists.

Remove subsidies from all rail companies and order them to cut their fares by 3/4s minimum. All their new trains will be built by UK firms also their "investors" can wait for their divies, or I would call in all their subsidies (plus interest) and nationalise them with very little/no compensation--. That goes the for the utilities aswell.

Scrap HS2.

Tax all Mutlicorps to the hilt.

Close all tax loop holes.

Stop building prisons, just put up marquees on enclosed unused military land and start farms from scratch using basic tools

Totally agree with rail companies. It's going to cost me £62 for a return to crewe from Bham airport because my flight comes in at 7am. Thank goodness DD is free otherwise it would be far cheaper for my dad to drive down. My dad has been heavily involved in the rail industry and has started to refuse safety work in the UK because they don't follow through properly on his recommendations. His comments start with Gravy and go south from there.

biggest cuts so far

40% of cuts announced in last parliament have been implemented, 60% still to come.

Housing benefit for starters. This goes mainly to landlords. It also means that there is a floor on rents so landlords know the minimum they can charge. I would cap rents myself but the parties seem intent on letting other taxpayers take the strain so landlords can have huge profits. I also think working tax credits should be cut as they merely subsidise low wages so that big companies can make a profit and offer their shareholders more. Real Capitalism does not offer socialism for the rich - landlords and big business. If landlords cannot survive without government subsidy they should sell up as should big business, that is real Capitalism, not constantly being subsidised by taxpayers.

I would cut tax avoidance by companies and individuals.

I'd cut myself a decent fringe. Seriously he looks so nice with a fringe. Whoever told him to go spamwise I do not know.

vitaminz if you know how to make a huge profit as a landlord do tell, you'll also make a fortune. But you don't.

sheepy non-thinking and bleating the usual 'it is all the fault of the landlords', as usual on here.

those of us outside London do have rent caps, they are called 'market forces'. Overprice a property and no tenant.

all for a living wage, no zero-hours contracts and so on - people in work should be paid enough so that they don't need benefits, as otherwise the benefits are propping up the industries.

this is not easy for small businesses though where 'huge profits' are definitely not made.

special - So we agree? Presumably you have no problem having housing benefit removed for landlords then since if it is all up to market forces, let the market decide and you landlords don't need any taxpayer help to pay your mortgage and prop up rents? I'm glad we agree.

vitaminz where do you propose the people who no longer get housing benefit live? Do you plan to take all their children into care? If so, how are you paying for this?

The most expensive type is HB cost is actually B&B/emergency accommodation for people who have lost their tenancies for one reason or another.

No one wants to live in that kind of accommodation and it is a disgrace that the state pays so much for it. Possibly a fund that allowed councils to build and run this kind of accommodation at and then move people into council run rental both at reasonable rents would be the way to go. Given that the councils are footing the bill anyway.

Oh hang on a minute, that is council housing, the system we used to have before the Tories sold them all for short term gain and this idea that we should all aspire.

Capping HB has been tried. The previous Tory government did it. It did not drive rents down.

mink, nobody would have to move. Landlords would have to lower their rent if tenants could no longer pay. That's what market forces is actually about just like Tesco and Sainsbury's are having to lower their prices because Aldi and Lidl offer lower prices. Huge amounts of people are on housing benefit so if it was removed/reduced landlords would have to accept what people could actually pay rather than relying on a top up from other taxpayers. That is real supply and demand with no government subsidies or interventions.

Landlords would just evict their tenants and not let to people on Housing Ben. It would cause a wave of homelessness. Exactly what the tories like.

If I was Cameron, I'd make no cuts and borrow more. They have already borrowed way, way more than Labour ever did. So why cut anything at all?

Thinking about it some more, I would target benefit scroungers.

You know those sons and daughters of millionaires who have huge incomes in their own right (say, an MP's wage) but have claimed Child Benefit and DLA. Invoice them for every penny they ever scrounged off the state. People like... Cameron.