Re mansion tax, we not in it together

[BreakingDad77]

AIBU to think it's only the poor, infirm and elderly getting squeezed, to cut government spending and reduce the deficit.

Vivienne I agree food vouchers would be a good idea for those that have been sanctioned.

Seems likely that most of those sanctioned more than once have mental health problems / low intelligence. Doesn't seem helpful to leave them with no food on top of other problems.

ship people are not starving to death because benefits are paid at too low a rate. It doesn't take very much food to keep an adult alive. That food might be boring, but you don't need very much of it and as Elie says it can be done very cheaply.

So why is Iain Duncan smith refusing to give the figure of deaths as a direct consequence of having their benefits cut if no one is starving?

ship because there are no figures. I doubt that any doctor has yet put "having benefits cut" as cause of death on a death certificate.

ooh lets play spot the tory voter

How childish Samcro. You have no idea how anyone on this thread voted, but don't let that stop you.

People on minimum wage pay tax too...yeah about £40 a month

A single person on jobseekers under 24 gets £57.90 a week.

Out of that they have to pay something to council tax , gas,elec and water, travel to jobcentre and interviews and a phone for jobs to contact them and now talk of paying approx £10 a week to their rent.

It will not be easy for someone to live on that

IDS is refusing to allow an investigation into those people who have died within 6 weeks of benefits being sanctioned. That data could be collated quite easily, but the government is not allowing it because it is very likely that it would show that the UK government contributed to the deaths of more people through poverty (starvation, suicide, etc.) than have been killed in the UK by terrorists (which kills about as many people within the UK each year as die of bee stings).

By tax, I'm guessing you mean Income Tax, Kardamyli. IT is only 25% of the total tax revenue collected. If you compare incomes, the 10% people on the lowest incomes pay about 60% total tax when everything is factored in (VAT etc) while the top 10% pay circa 45%. So, surprisingly, those benefit scroungers working whatever hours a week minimum wage pay tax too.

Council Tax is another tax that disproportionately affects poorer people - for example, in my area a house worth £130k means a bill of £2300, a house worth £750k is just under £3100 (the top band is £320k +). Hardly fair, is it?

So yeah, OP. YANBU

That would be £130k value when council tax was introduced which would be quite a big, expensive house

A single person on jobseekers under 24 gets £57.90 a week.

Out of that they have to pay something to council tax , gas,elec and water, travel to jobcentre and interviews and a phone for jobs to contact them and now talk of paying approx £10 a week to their rent.

It will not be easy for someone to live on that

If only there was some way they could earn more money...we could come up with a name for it...we could call it a job

And yes there are loads of the, out there for people who want to work

So there is a job out there for every person who is unemployed?

So how would you suggest that the government squeeze those who are not poor or infirm? What is the solution to the massive budget deficit that you would all like to see?

Stop MPs having expensive second homes in London and get them all sharing a MP residence building .

Stop expenses by MPs for ridiculous things and everyday living expenses cough IDS and his £39 breakfasts etc paid for by the taxpayer

That would be top of my list

Underemployment is an issue. People want to work and they want more work. This idea of people en masse wanting more benefits and fewer hours is a bit of a myth. Sure it happens but extrapolating it in a Daily Mail manner to cause outrage isn't.

ship Have you done the costings? How much will that save? Have you factored in that some breakfasts might only cost £9.99?

Would you become an MP if you had to sleep in a dormitary for half the year? If you think MPs should sleep in dormitarys maybe other people who expect the state to Pick up their living expenses could do the same? Would certainly cut the housing benefit bill.

I'm not saying that would fix the deficit alone but it would be a start.
Why shouldn't MPs stay in dormitories? Other people live in shared housing ( families as well before you say MPs have family)

I'd also tackle the issue of absent parents not paying maintenance.

Pretty sure ship didn't say anything about dormitories.....

Didn't MPs recently refuse to have cheaper wine in the Commons bar?

Ooh cross post
You do mean dormitories. No one would do the job then, though I'll grant you we might not notice their absence for a while..
More teleconferencing and less leaving your constituency would help. Also don't think we should pay for works to Parliament or Buck House.

Ship, by the time you built and maintained a mahoosive apartment block to house MPs and their families I don't think the savings would be that great.

Butterfly, who would pay for parliament then? I agree with you about buck house. If we stopped paying the royal family I think they could afford to support themselves.

What do you mean by dormitories? You can have catered halls which would be like the classic gentleman's clubs. A room to sleep in comfort with WiFi and a private bathroom. A lounge and dining room. Even with staff etc it would probably be more economic than 650 sets of expenses and a lot of the current govt had communal living between the ages of 7 and 21.
The only problem is the security risk of a single location for terrorism targets.

YANBU but the Conservatives have a majority so there must be a lot of people in this country well, I'm in Scotland so actually I mean in the UK who think cutting HB and scrapping the mansion tax is the way to go.

I despair.

Oh, and Kardamyli I pay tax, so does DP, we also run businesses that pay tax. We're not sick of footing the bill. We welcome the opportunity to pay into a system that helps and supports people; that makes some semblance of an attempt to share our country's wealth. So try not to lump all tax-payers together. I feel there are vast differences between us and our values.

That Parliament building is way too expensive to maintain. I think Chuka Umunna has the right idea, turn it into a museum and move government to modern offices which the taxpayer will still pay for, but will be much cheaper.

It is a fascinating building, would need much less work to be preserved rather than be made fit for purpose as a work place and you could legitimately charge and it would pay for itself.

Kard if we remove all funding from the royals then they could withdraw from public life and the country could lose a lot of tourism money. The senior non royal nobs can live without scrutiny. The Windsors can't.

This thread has deteriorated into another pointless tit-for-tat political debate, all of which is ill informed, unachievable, and tenuous at best. If there were no job seekers allowance, I suspect many of those sitting watching Jeremy Kyle during the day would be doing something else. If Nicola Sturgeon weren't paid more than the Prime Minister of Britain, I suspect she wouldn't have taken the job. Let's see if she's willing to redistribute her pay packet to the poor in her constituency. That's socialism for you. Everyone is entitled, but some are more entitled than others, eh. Morally I don't see how you can justify taking what one person has worked for and give it to another person who has not earned it. I don't see how you can justify my child being entitled to your child's wages. Each of us should not be writing cheques we are not willing to put our own money behinds. It is so very easy to spend other people's money for them, but if you have to do an extra days work each week so that your neighbour could stay at home with his kids, that's a different matter, isn't it? There is no shortage of work or money in this country. What there is is a shortage of motivation and desire to change.