to be utterly disgusted at people's comments re. welfare cuts

[HappyGoLuckyGirl]

Yes, I'm aware that our welfare system needs reforming. I do not profess to know how this should be done.

I've just read a few articles on the proposed cuts that primarily focused on reducing tax credits. The vitrol is appalling. I can't believe this is the country I live in.

I am a single mother working 40 hours a week also mid way through a 5 year part time degree. I earn slightly over minimum wage. Things are tight enough as it is, with the tax credits I get (80% of which goes on my weekly childcare bill) and now they are planning to reduce them.

I am trying to better myself so I don't always have to rely on benefits to get me through the month and yet I'm being punished! Why are working people being targeted? How is that fair in the slightest? If I wasn't so furious I would cry.

And as for people saying that employers should raise workers wages, I can say with 100% surety that if I approached my employer and asked for a living wage (increase of £8k+) I would be flat out refused and or fired. And I work in a skilled job! What hope do people who work for a large multi-national company have?

I am very this morning.

Lotus - too busy to address all the inaccuracies in your last post, but Labour merely renamed the old Family Allowance, which become TCs.

I had a lawyer friend who told me he came up with work solutions in the shower and then could charge clients for his thinking time - very efficient!

All, that was ITV not me. I certainly thought that when I read it - there were a form of working family credit before Blair's but even earlier there used just to be a child tax allowance for men against their tax return, then we brought out child benefit which went to mothers so those whose husband even if rich gave them nothing at least could feed the children but then on top of that child benefit working credits of some kind came in for the poor but Blair took them up to stratastrophic pay heights to ensure most working families were claimants as that helps socialists control people.

Yes, I despair of the selfishness and materialism I see in some people around me and I genuinely believe it is increasing, though I am not sure why. There is little hope for others less fortunate than them (of course, they always say it is because they work so hard and nothing to do with fortune). I guess the only comfort is that they are only superficially happy and are not living at a level where the heart & soul are really engaged.

It's really hard not to be bitter towards them (I speak as someone who has married into a family like this - it's all first class and 5 star hotels, but they wouldn't sponsor us to help the homeless!), but that won't help anyone. Dh isn't too bad, but the other day he was moaning as he could have avoided some tax by putting something in my name. It wasn't even a ridiculous amount, or money that we are desperate for (ok, we could have had a 5 star hotel!). I had to explain the tax would be spread out to others less fortunate, people who really need it, schools our children attend, hospitals/ doctors we all use. I think he felt better afterwards .

I'm not really sure, though, how to help people SEE that the way they are behaving or reacting is fundamentally selfish. It's like 'love is blind' except the love is for themselves.

Please let's do something practical to bring about change instead of just writing about it. If we all got together we could bring about real change

HEAR HEAR

LL asks about me. Yes I work from home at the moment although I'm in court tomorrow and travel for business so it does depend on the way. I did not work from home for over 10 years with young children though.

I was asked
"You keep going on about how you're a full time working mother and you don't want to subsidise part timers. So let me ask you something. If a system existed that allowed YOU to work less hours and have more time with your children, would you support it? If this system existed for EVERYONE?

I'm trying to work out whether your motive is jealousy/resentment (I had to do it so everyone else should)or if you genuinely believe there is something wrong with working part time when you have kids. Personally I'd be happy to pay more tax if that meant there was a shorter working week and better services for all, because you know, I'm not a dickhead."

I come from the free market libertarian view point that our own responsibilities for our nuclear and wider family are our own and we should be largely left to get on with it as we choose but funding most of it ourselves through our own efforts. I would like to see a capped 20% (or if necessary 33% tax/NI) flat tax for all so that is the context from which I am coming. I would not be against a benefits cap of £10k with £10k paid to everyone over 18 whether you are retired, in work or not - a universal payment. So a couple could have £20k and not work or earn £20k and have £40k or a single person £10k but that would include housing so they'd have to get their finger out and work or live with mother. However the nation currently has massive debts so anything like these plans are pie in the sky for the moment and we have a very wet fairly left wing Tory party so not much hope there.

I could work fewer hours. If I earn the minimum wage in an hour and given the things I enjoy are things like walking and sleeping and I only drink tap water etc I don't think I actually have a particularly expensive tastes. However I enjoy my work so don't want to do fewer hours at it. Most parents are happy to work and spend time with children. Many do not want to spend all day every day cleaning the house, minding small children etc. They want balance.

If a couple have children and one of them can stay at home full time because the other earns enough to support them without tax credits and housing benefit then yes they can do that but I would sill object if it were the woman at home as until we have more men than women staying home women will continue to own 1% of the world's wealth only. Evey woman at home is kicking other women in the teeth as she is reducing the chances of women getting enough power. It is a political feminist issue and appalling that so many women are at home. If tax credits are ensuring that women are kept down then they are playing a big part in damage to women and usually at least on feminist issues the left are with me, if on nothing else. Someone will now tell me it's a wonderful feminist act to stay home and clean the house now I suppose - such a great "choice".

Every woman at home is not kicking other women in the teeth.

AndyWarhol - I hope your experiences get through to Lotus.

Agree with this:

"I think it was Rodney Bickerstaffe who asked why it was under Thatcher, that the way to make the rich work harder was to give them more money and the way to make the poor work harder was to give them less money."

I think if the tories go ahead and touch Tax Credits/Housing Ben for the working but on the breadline, they will reap the whirlwind 5 years from now.

BTW, my eldest lost his DLA (severe dyspraxia/sensory integrative dysfunction diagnosed by top consultants in the US and then here in the UK). I went to the ATOS thing with him. The doctor did not speak very good English at all. To the point, she actually didn't seem to be understanding anything he said. Basically, he can walk for 10 metres and not fall over so she over-ruled all those pesky experts and declared him cured.

He was at uni then but has gone on to have a well paid job (doing a bit better than Lotus's son and he's a Labour voter!) Whilst he is fine without the DLA, it was his right to have it and it transformed his childhood and got him to the point he could go to uni and have a great career as a programmer. I wonder about those kids with conditions like dyspraxia, or at the mild end of the autistic spectrum who would have got DLA and now never will. It meant we could finally afford to learn to drive in our late 30s, so we could expand his horizons, take him places (as well as get him to the endless physio/OT/Speech tharpy appointments), and later buy him the computer stuff he needed so that later he became eminently employable.

Other kids like him will now never get those chances. Had he not had DLA, it's a very realistic assumption he might now be unemployed as a very low income family, we couldn't do any of that stuff for him and he wouldn't have got to uni.

And long term that costs lovely Lotus and her spamfaced pals, a lot more money.

But tories have never been capable of thinking longterm.

Lotus - so you're a "feminist". Interesting. I'd have to disagree with your view that every women staying home is ruining it for other women, as surely the best thing for women is to allow individual choice? The problem with patriarchy is it forces women to behave in a certain way, your brand of feminism does the same thing, when really we should be campaigning for women to be able to choose what they want without their gender forcing them to behave in x way.

I see your point about neoliberalism, it's not something I personally agree with, but I understand your argument. However I often think that with neoliberalism, you are assuming we live in a meritocracy and everyone is coming from the same place. It's unfortunately not like that. Some people are given a massive head start, which obviously means they are going to find it easier than others. Someone who comes from a single parent family who had to leave school at 1
There's also the argument that it's not very moral - personally, I don't think the "I'm alright, who cares about everyone else" is a nice attitude to have. It also ignores the fact that no one in society exists in a vacuum, everyone is interlinked - without low paid workers, the highly paid bosses wouldn't be in their position making money.

I think it's much fairer to pay higher taxes and ensure EVERYONE has a good quality of life, instead of allowing a small number of people to have it and everyone else suffer.

This article spells out just how much money is lost due to benefit fraud compared to tax evasion in this country.

This pie chart shows a breakdown of the welfare bill and where the money is spent.

Hear hear LashesandLipstick. I despise the 'I'm alright, fuck everyone else.' attitude which is what it boils down to. I do not enter into debates with those so selfish as to hold this opinion.

I could describe my self as a family based libertarian if I wanted to get all particular about it.

That is I believe in looking after my family to the best of my abilities with no support from the state. If that means I'm not working for an employer but am living frugally on family money and investments as planned for before I chose to have children so be it. It doesn't knock other women, men or children who choose differently and enjoy living in what I see as a hamster wheel of consumption. I am educated, I worked and saved to get where I am now, able to focus on rearing a family.

This does not do other women down (why would it? have I reduced Angela Merkel's self confidence? Doubt it somehow.) and I don't seem to be putting a dent in rampant capitalism either, hey ho that is a fail. Someone needs to look after my children and I'm big headed enough to think I'm the best for my family.

TheCunk, me too. It's really annoying. I find this particularly funny i2.wp.com/www.leftycartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/types_of_libertarian1.png

I think Labour should have stopped Brown tbh

It was well known when they were elected they had a huge problem of the middle level wages that supported a family were being hollowed out and arguments followed about an industrial policy etc. Instead Brown argued that the UK could deregulate the city even more and use the tax to re-distribute to the regions and top up low pay. Many people inside Labour argued that doing so wasn't a solution but Brown ignored them. The £10 element of tax credits was even added so that the middle class would turn a blind eye. The £40 freebie designed to keep support up while hiding the massive transfers.

Then the financial crisis put paid to the tax revenue. Browns pre-election increases also pushed tax credits so high employers woke up and saw they only needed to offer NMW.

I agree changes to tax credits don't and will not solve the huge problem of a race to the bottom in wages. Unfortunately the left though need to grasp the truth that propping up wages through means testing doesn't work. It simply ends up breaking the welfare budget and trapping people in endless low pay.

Brown was told tax credits would end up a disaster and that they would allow a future right wing government to attack welfare with public support.

The Skivers and strivers angle was pushed by the Coalition and our present Tory Government.....they villified the unemployed successfully. for their own purposes. It was and is callous.
See article in todays (24th june) Guardian by George Monbiot. It nails the subject.

They think it's choice to stay home, clean the house and serve men but it's not really "choice". It's like girls living under ISIS - all they know is women serve, provide sex on demand and clean the house and men keep them. It's not really choice at all. Keeping women out of economic power by suggesting money is dirty and nasty and capitalist and should be left solely in male hands is just a con. Much better to provide for your family by earning enough to keep them.

I am not anti welfare state and nor are most of the Tories but the changes to university credit will have an impact.

I agree there is a low wage problem. It is hard to solve. I see that 3000 foreign nurses will have to leave the UK due to immigration changes so that might mean that we recruit more here BUT I am not really anti immigration at all so I am not looking for a UKIP solution to that issue. If we can make people realise they might as well work hard to get the economy going we will do better. My brother stopped working at weekends when his tax rate got to 52% as why work if the state steals half? That was tipping point. I feel quite close to tipping point myself in terms of effort. Whereas if you keep most of the money you earn then you work harder and there is more money available for the poor.

Likening women who choose to look after their own kids to sex slaves is quite rude. Just because it's a choice you don't agree with or wouldn't personally do yourself doesn't mean it's not a choice. I would never choose to work 60 hours a week - doesn't mean I think there's anything wrong with someone else choosing to.

The state doesn't take half - it takes half of anything over £150,000, which the person DOESNT NEED. That money is used to make sure all kids can access an education and that the NHS is free at the point of use - how can anyone have a problem with that?! You also still keep most of the money. If you earn £155,000 the only bit that will be taxed 50% is the 5,000

I don't agree it is a disincentive as some of us aren't motivated by money and actually see the benefit. Do some people honestly prefer sitting on piles of money rather than ensuring a child gets an education or an elderly person gets treatment? That's upsetting

Lashes, I love you! You say everything I'd like to so eloquently!

MerryMarigold thank you! I'm glad most people on this thread agree, the attitude that we shouldn't help others really upsets me

My brother stopped working at weekends when his tax rate got to 52% as why work if the state steals half?

LOL for real? how do we fund the roads, hospital, telecommunications infrastructure etc that makes this country/their businesses run.

Also morally this is 2015 why are we going backwards.

So, you have to work 30 hours a week to get a working tax credit top up. I heard people calling in on the radio yesterday who said that they were only working 16 hours a week. Perhaps this was a child tax credit, rather than a working tax credit?

Lotus, I don't know why you think that a SAHM is more likely to suck her husband's cock and be riding penis. I've been a SAHM and a working mother. My sex life remained the same throughout. At no point of my marriage have I considered myself to be trading sex. At no point has my husband ever felt aggrieved if I did not feel like having sex or demanded that I put out. Likewise, I do not view my husband as a sex slave.

You have a pretty blighted view of love and relationships if you genuinely feel that the second a person does or is not able to contribute (directly) financially to a relationship they are a prostitute. To follow your flawed logic through, where do you stand on a partner unable to work due to ill health or a disability? Those receiving cancer tratment or off work following surgery? Are they sex for cash prostitutes? What about a partner who is studying? Is that student a sex slave to their partner? I've rarely heard such a load of ill thought out, antagonistic crap.

WhattodowithMum I think there are / were two rates of working tax credit. One for 16 hours (lone parents / parent with disability or disabled child) and a higher one if you are able work 30 hours.

Yes, I posted the link to the Government website setting out the rates for up to 16 hours and over that level above. In both categories quite a bit of money can be payable to the family and it is costing about £30bn a year.

I cannot remember how we got on to housewifery. I presumably said if a spouse but not the state can keep a woman that is better although still not great as it helps ensure women earn very little and never rise to positions of power. I stand by that although it's a bit off topic. If staying home is such fun let men do it whilst women go out and earn money.
[I certainly accept that some working husbands get a very bad bargain - some get no sex, a wife who cannot wield the mop or is too lazy to do so and who isn't very good with the children either and who earns nothing.]

Lotus - why not let whoever wants to stay home regardless of gender? Not all people have the desire to be a career woman/man.