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?

Just to get off the subject of the mgs for a mo...
In 2011, councillors cost us in excess of £210 m. No councils, councillors. I think it might well be worth asking - what have you done for us apart from talking about wheely bin collection. I think you could leave it to councils to get on with overall scrutiny by MPs. That might also get MPs more engaged with their constituency (we could afford to pay them more). The problem is it will not be popular with political parties as they provide their leg work.

I was given a disciplinary and a written warning for taking unauthorised leave once. I was a single parent and my 16 month old had been hospitalised. I'd been at her side from her admittance on the Friday night until she was discharged on Sunday. A few hours later she was readmitted until the Monday. I was advised to keep her home on the Tuesday and she could return to nursery on Wednesday. I keep my employer informed every step of the way and when I went back in on Wednesday got called in to see the manager who told me I needed to get more reliable childcare. Seriously. I asked him who looked after his kids when they were sick...his wife. I told him I didn't have a wife and he no longer had an employee.

I got another job the next day through an agency. That was 15 years ago but it still pisses me off that I was targeted for being a single parent.

If I was David Cameron, I would cut my own throat.

I'd start by taxing the people who can afford it.

Moustache bloody brilliant!

I think some people are deliberately missing the point.

There is a TOTAL PACKAGE of £25bn of cuts set out by Osborne..

£12bn will come from the welfare
budget over the next two years.

To make those kind of savings, you have too look at the areas of highest
spending, eg:

Tax credits (currently about £30bn a year); housing benefit (£21bn); disability living allowance and personal independence payments (£15bn); incapacity benefits (£14bn); and child benefit (£12bn).

So tax credits will be frozen at the very least, if not cut. The benefits cap will be lowered to around £20k. Disability and incapacity benefits will be cut. Houssing benefit for the under 25s will end.

There is also talk of means testing carers allowance, and long term JSA.

Cuts to the benefits above are the only way to cut £12bn from the welfare bill.

Sorry about the formatting above. The Android app is crap!

Go after the tax dodgers at the top
Get rid of the stupid macho defense toys
Tax higher rate earners
As a last resort start picking on everyone else
Get the deficit down at a more realistic rate without screwing everyone in the meantime.

I thought JSA was already means tested olgaga.

I would start by taxing worldwide income for all residents. Those non-doms utilize British resources that are paid for by taxpayers. I think you would find London half empty.

I would then remove tax credits and make the first £20k tax free if your household income is £100k or below.

I would try to simplify means testing so income is taken from inland revenue. Once you spend one year at a certain level you have 3 months to move out to private sector housing.

All perks in the Houses of Parliament. We should all be in this together; true leadership involves sacrifice Mr Cameron!

`"Is ESA and the ilk dependant on previous earnings or NI contributions at all? Seems to make sense so as to not penalise those in genuine need whilst encouraging those on long term to get in work?"

posts that include stuff like that show how thick people are.
so you want another cut to disabled benefits. ffs say it and own it

I would start by taxing worldwide income for all residents

But what would you in the event of a tax treaty with another country though. How can they be expected to pay twice (assuming they pay in the domiciled country too)

Even labour didn't think this was a good idea.

Scrap or seriously downgrade Trident, get rid of all the middle-men and bureaucrats in the NHS, winter fuel allowance only for those who actually need it, no sending any benefits abroad (that goes for both immigrants sending money back home, and pensioners claiming their pension while they're sunning it up in Spain), minimum wage up to a living wage, no sky-high salaries coming from government funds.

MPs redundancy packages (£11.5m). Give them the statutory redundancy they entitle private sector workers to.

Cut the number of MPs in half.

Cut benefits for rich pensioners

Cut out an entire layer of managers in the NHS and actually get rid of them rather than re employing them as consultants.

Look at senior level staffing across the public services.

Scrap Trident. Hahaha.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=UHe49T06dnI

I'm assuming you own a fallout shelter?

Dam bamboo, I know America does that to some extent and I think in a lot of circumstances it's a really good idea. Boris Johnson has dual citizenship and he was born in the states. Recently he sold a property and there were reports he had to pay tax to the U.S.

Looking for an honest answer here from someone who has more of an idea than I do about these welfare cuts, I just feel so confused by it all and can't even make an educated guess as to how they'll make the cuts -

DO YOU THINK TAX CREDITS WILL BE ABOLISHED, OR DO YOU THINK ANYONE WHO HAS A CHILD FROM HERE ON IN WILL NOT BE ENTITLED TO MORE TAX CREDITS? OR DO YOU THINK IT'S MORE LIKELY CB WILL BE HIT BY THE CUTS RATHER THAN TAX CREDITS?

On the sick pay issue, yes I understand it's a nice reassurance for those who have it and fear serious long term illness but it gets abused horribly. My DH has had staff off sick for ridiculous reasons.

For people who work in the private sector there is the option to claim statutory sick pay - a much lower rate than my normal wage. If this is good enough for vast numbers of workers, it should be good enough for public sector workers.

The same kind of goes for overly generous maternity packages; if SMP is deemed good enough for a vast number of workers then why top up public sector workers with very generous packages?

I know of a worker who had 6 months full pay maternity, some time on SMP, 5 weeks full paid leave, went back a month, 4 months off sick on full pay with stress (working and leaving her child caused her stress) went back a month, then back on maternity for another 6 months full pay (along those lines roughly) ... Essentially with two periods of maternity and two periods of sick pay they ended up with approaching two years on full pay without being in the office, just a handful of weeks worked. It would never happen in the private sector.

I think in a lot of circumstances it's a really good idea

What circumstances? Why should an individual pay income tax twice on the same pot of money? CGT twice on the same pot of money?

very few private organisations I know pay only SMP. Lots of them also have enhanced sick pay (subject to doc's note)

I don't think it is good enough for private sector workers SaltySeaBird but that logic of envy just leads to a race to the bottom. By that logic workers in the developing world have to accept much poorer working conditions so maybe we should too.

You do know lots of private sector companies pay contractual maternity pay and not just SMP, don't you? And that there are qualifying conditions such as minimum length of service before starting maternity leave and an agreement to work a minimum length of service on returning to work. It goes to back to it not being a race to the bottom and cuts to maternity allowances of any sort - SMP, Maternity Allowance, contractual maternity pay - disadvantage women and will deter some of those women from employment in certain sectors.

I'm sorry your husband is managing what appears to be a band of shirkers but you can't then apply that to the whole of the public sector.

I've never, ever known a private organisation pay more than SMP. Not for admin staff anyway.

Oh so it's just the low level workers who should have their maternity pay cut....