to wonder what benefits will get the chop from the £12 billion of cuts?

[steiner8]

Just that really. I'm wondering which benefits are going to go or be significantly cut. Anyone have any idea?

I think taking on the responsibility of a pet when your are in receipt of benefits (regardless of working status) is extremely foolish. We have a golden who is accident prone. We had insurance and they cancelled the policy as he had too many issues/ accidents. We spend about $3500 (we live in the US) a year on our dog. Last year he was hit by a car and needed surgery to repair his hip. That alone was $4500.

Truth be told most people in the UK can't afford a pet. We are top 2% income and after our dog passes we won't be getting a second dog. I grew up with horses so know to rent or borrow not buy!

Internet access is a necessity in today's world. Just a shame the service in the UK is awful.

We would find life very difficult without internet access as many of the products that our disabled child needs (like nappies) are only available online.

Pet insurance companies suggest it costs about £16-17,000 over an animal's lifetime to keep a cat or dog. This is probably on the high side given the nature of the companies doing the assessment but it is still a lot of money.

We can't expect people to save up that kind of money as a pet fund before they get an animal 'just in case' so of course there will be people on benefits with pets. Hopefully they will get back on their feet again fairly quickly and wouldn't be taking on more animals while in that position but it is too harsh to expect people to get rid of their pets if they fall on a patch of hard times.

Should those that will always be on benefits, always have to feel poor?

there are places such as pdsa that can help with pets if they are ill. when people are in a better situation they can give back to them

It's called prioritising.....we don't get any benefits (not even cb) so yes my hubby is a high rate tax payer. We don't have sky tv....or a pet....we have 1car that we paid 5k for 2 years ago.

I have to say....it really bugs me when people complain that they have bills to pay.....we ALL have bills to pay. Pay the bills first and then sort out the rest.

The deficit is not like a mortgage or credit card bill. It's not a household debt and doesn't need to be paid down as such.

It's far easier to grow it away than cut it away, that is exactly what was happening when the tories took over in 2010 and by their words and actions they made the situation worse. Find me a leading economist saying we should be continuing with austerity or that it worked at all in the first place.

The thing is the tories know this, everything they are doing is driven by ideology not economics. For example if they want to bring down the benefits bill they could bring in rent controls that will cut housing benefit. If they think they are paying out too much in tax credits they could raise the minimum wage to the living wage. If they feel they need more money in they could go after tax avoiders and evaders. Instead they hit the poor and the lower earners very single time.

Personally speaking, after a crappy night with DS I am realising that the likes of TTWK are trolls. Nobody is that horrific as a person surely? I am calling troll and reporting as such.

We used to have a poster here called HappyMummyofOne" who was a another apparently horrible human being. She disappeared eventually after a thread started picking up her worst posts. TTWK* writes in the same posting style as HappyMummy did....a few changes in detail but otherwise the same horrible, sad and selfish comments.

O and TTWK needs to take a look at the This Is My Child campaign...she ight learn something but I doubt it. If she is real then she comes across as a cold, hard unfeeling person and I pity her children who will grow up to be exactly the same as their smug, sad selfish mother.

mcgiblets

there's nothing wrong with a deficit per se. However, it has to be proportional to the expected growth rate over the economic cycle.
So, if you expect average annual growth of 2% over a cycle, then an average deficit of 2% is perfectly sustainable.
The problem is that since 2008 the UK has been running deficits of up to 12%, gradually reducing, now down to 5.7% (about 8% averaged over the current cycle). Meanwhile growth is running at about 2.5% (and about 0% when averaged over the current cycle)
The current situation is not sustainable in the long term. It's not particularly damaging the in short term as bond investors have confidence, but this can change overnight.

Growth is low because of austerity.

Please don't take it upon yourself to "out" people on AIBU, however much you are outraged by people disagreeing with you, comrade.

If wages are too low then why not legislate for the living wage? Tories don't care about low wages, they just have an ideological hatred of welfare. It annoys me so much that raising taxes is considered a no go but cutting from the poorest and most vulnerable is fine.

"Tories don't care about low wages"

Yeah, Conservatives are a tiny minority of people who don't care about workers or people on benefits or the poor.

Since you are repeating it, have you ever reflected on the way that narrative does not stack up with very large numbers of English working class voting for the Conservative Party, and the Labour Party only ever getting in if they sweep Wales and Scotland?

It's almost like the unfathomable mystery of how a country that universally hated Maggie as we all know, managed to repeatedly elect her, isn't it?

(If it helps: there are actually an awful a lot of people outside the "rich minority", including working class and low income people, who quietly go and vote Conservative while others are making a lot of noise about how they are the country's working class heroes)

I was referring to the Tory party rather than people who voted Tory. What policy do they have that shows they care about low wages?

The deficit/debt issue is just a cover. An economic shock used to sell off the state to private enterprise, essentially guaranteeing private monopolies paid for with public funding.

As I said before, unless you are really wealthy then the Tories are not doing anything to help you. In the end, the middle classes will pay the same levels of taxes that they do now, with the top rates being cut.

I get cb and tax credits, i work full time in a government/nhs job. I have had a 1% payrise once in 6 years. I dont have a flat screen, smoke or drink. Other than a few clothes for work most of mine are falling apart and i havent been to the hairdresser for a year my car is ten years old and i need it for my job. No holidays etc. Not sure how i am taking the piss claiming as some people want these benefits cut we need them - If they cut these benefits i dont know whst i will do we already live close to poverty, they might as well put us in the work house

Just a shame the service in the UK is awful.

internet in the UK is fine and dirt cheap. It's also a necessity.

If wages are too low then why not legislate for the living wage?

the problem is high cost of living, and much or most of that is high housing costs, not low wages (they are different problems even though they seem to be different sides of the same coin).

mcgiblets - the greeks don't seem to have grown their budget deficit away very successfully. their situation is awful

I totally agree about high housing costs. But again I don't hear the Government announcing any policy to address this.

The Greek economy has contracted very sharply. It's a bit difficult to grow away your deficit if your economy has shrunk by a quarter.

And one of the big problems in Greece is not a spending issue but a revenue one - namely, that Greeks don't like paying taxes, and that revenue collection has been terrible.

In discussions on the deficit/ government debt, people always forget that there are two ways of reducing deficits. One is to cut spending and the other is to raise revenues. If you are simultaneously cutting spending while handing out money to wealthier people in the form of lower taxes, it does not in all honesty look like a credible and even handed way of achieving a balance budget. And it is economic nonsense too because of the multiplier effect - taking £12bn out of the pockets of the people most likely to spend rather than save is not a good way of "growing away your deficit".

Greece went down the austerity route, didn't it? Perhaps if Cameron hadn't put us on the outs with Europe, he'd get an opportunity to learn why the route he's chosen may not work. Not that he'd care. Ideology, not results.