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.

Evidence for no shortage of work? Unemployment is falling. Underemployment is not.

Ellie I think you're missing the fact that actually lots of people are happy to do an extra day's work to support the most vulnerable. I'm not spending your money. no-one in my circle of family and friends are spending your money but, guess what? if you're ill or unable to work, I really don't mind you benefitting from the welfare system that my taxes help to support.

This thread is really upsetting. I can only hope several posters have hairy hands.

I cannot see how the lowest paid by 60% tax -VAT is only 20%, lots of things (food) are exempt, and they pay no other taxes. Can those claiming this please support their lies their position?

really have you been to any deprived areas where there is so little investment, so few businesses that there is so little money around that impacts other industries and they can not thrive. Unless you believe they should pack up and move to London where of course there are more jobs and a lot more money around obscene amounts of money that is shared by a few, a growing number

I have lived in London all my life, I am aware there is far more opportunity here than in many parts of the country but still it is difficult for some people to get a job, once you have been unemployed for sometime (and there can be many reasons why redundancy, illness, looking after relatives) many employers are just not interested, you retrain still little or no interest as you have not got the experience then for many age is against them - this happened to my mum and a few people I know they ended up working in jobs they had not trained in and on a pitiful wage if that. many are caught in this trap

and really some are pointing out that no one is starving (personally not sure that is the case but I know many people are living way below the poverty line, we have certainly had cases of OAP's dying of hypothermia as they have not been able to afford to put on their heating in winter as the money they receive does not cover their bills) yet the increase in the NEED for food banks is increasing by the day how can this be its a fucking disgrace we are not a third world or developing country

APlaceOnTheCouch But by advocating removing money from one person and giving to another under coercion, you are spending other people's money, and Greece is only the latest example of how a welfare based society cannot succeed. Welfare systems either collapse because they run out of other people's money to spend, of they deteriorate into dictatorship or fascism where people are forced to work for the benefit of others.

The problem with any welfare system is that once it has begun, it can only ever grow bigger and bigger and consume more and more money, because placating the system is the only guaranteed means of governments continuing to stay in power, and granting benefits to corporations who feed the system and provide service created dependancy on welfare for corporations. The politics is corrupt and the corporations that spring up to service the welfare systems are excessively wasteful and substantially overpaid. And everyone wonders why things get worse year on year while spending more and more money in-perpetuity.

Why tax people in mansions to feed people in cardboard boxes? That is a truly noble cause, but why not take people in £350K houses in Britain to pay the rent for people in council flats? It is just as equitable? Why not tax everyone in Britain at 50% to feed people in Africa and China? That is just as equitable. But we draw the line at helping people who are truly starving on a national scale because it is somehow unjust? so we are given a choice about that, but not the other?

Agree Seven, I am literally reading this. I don't know why really. It's quite a common attitude on MN. I just hope no jobseekers or NMW workers read. How bloody dispiriting to be spoken about like this^.

FreudianSlipper People in poverty, real actual poverty, not British nouveau poverty, move continents to find a better life for their children. This is how Britain was built. This is where Americans came from. They move heaven and earth to get to where they believe they have the best chance of success for their families, then they work damn hard, and they don't stop. What do we do? We sit and watch Jeremy Kyle on TV and complain about immigrants taking our jobs.

And Ellie the "unemployed sitting watching Jeremy Kyle" cliche is looking a bit threadbare.

The last time I was unemployed I read a lot of Dickens in between job hunting (it made me grateful for the welfare state then, I doubt it would have quite he same effect now). I'm sure people fill up any spare time in myriad ways.

Resorting to such stereotypes is a little transparent. Will you be invoking images of nylon tracksuits next?

That's 3 mentions of JK now Ellie.

The thread is only 60 posts long

If anyone actually wants to help, why not let someone sleep,on your sofa, feed them, encourage them and make a difference in their life? Most of us have sofas and spare food, and I'm sure we can all turn out a decent CV and give good council to a disheartened job seeker. It would make a far bigger difference that debating who should and should not pay more tax. We all have it within us to affect change in the world should we choose to do so.

really is that what all those who are unemployed do

that is certainly not the case for people I know but I know it is for some, but of course according to some areas of the press that covers everyone who is unemployed

we are not a third world country or a developing country we are a wealthy country but we are seeing a huge increase in the divide between rich and poor and the poor getting poorer

I am well aware what people do whatever they can to move from some countries for a better life we may not have the same levels of poverty but that does not mean that many are really struggling in a way that is just unacceptable here in the UK in 2015

Maggie you can be as as you want but the reason that Ellie's attitude is quite common on MN is because it is also quite common throughout society. If you want to give all your hard earned money to someone who can't be arsed to get a job go ahead, but don't expect everyone else to do the same.

Maggie Point taken.

If anyone actually wants to help, why not let someone sleep,on your sofa, feed them, encourage them and make a difference in their life? Most of us have sofas and spare food, and I'm sure we can all turn out a decent CV and give good council to a disheartened job seeker.

You mean counsel.

Is the trollish Katie Hopkins posting style deliberate?

Maggie you can be as hmm as you want but the reason that Ellie's attitude is quite common on MN is because it is also quite common throughout society. If you want to give all your hard earned money to someone who can't be arsed to get a job go ahead, but don't expect everyone else to do the same.

I don't believe there are that many people who 'can't be arsed' Kard.

I've worked with a deprived client group. The minority who present as apathetic invariably exhibit classic signs of clinical depression. As well they might.

Out of interest, do you thing Ellie's breathtakingly crass 'adopt a jobseeker as a pet and let them sleep on your sofa' idea would have widespread support?

think*

So called 'reality' television has a lot to answer for

I'd like to get some of you on a minibus and take you to see some real reality.

FreudianSlipper We are a country that is living far beyond its means, and have been doing so since the Second World War. We have never been able to fund the welfare system without getting into greater and grater debt. The NHS alone spends £10M more than all National Insurance contributions to the country each year, and that National Insurance is meant to pay for pensioners and unemployment benefits? Very few of us (myself included) will ever hope to be able to earn enough to pay into the system what we will take out of it over our lifetimes. Any yet people in some way expect to be able to continually take money from a system that is already mathematically in perpetual spiralling debt?

As for the "taxpayers are sick of this welfare bill" attitude, Nah. DP and I pay about 13k a year in tax and I really don't mind if that goes to the vulnerable, sick and unemployed people of this country. I was raised on benefits and did rely on them when I had my son at 16 (for 4months out of work and then in work benefits) and I'm bloody well grateful for that. It fucks me off really. Would you rather, A- Live on 20k+ a year and pay tax or B- Live on 231 a month and not pay tax? I know what I'd rather! And maybe before cutting or even abolishing tax credits we should make the minimum wage the LIVING wage!?

Ellie there are many people who are willing to pay a bit more tax, who would like to see the minimum wage increase, who would pay more towards their NI payments

but this government seems far more interested in cutting benefits to save money from those that so often really do need it than increase tax even if it is a small amount

I have no issue paying tax I think out NI payments should increase with support for those on low wages

and my dad was an immigrant that came here for a better life it was hard very hard, it worked out very well for him but the first few years were horrendous, poverty is not on the same level as his home country but the issue is that we are not a third world country we should not have so many people living below the poverty line

I've worked with a deprived client group. The minority who present as apathetic invariably exhibit classic signs of clinical depression. As well they might.

Why don't we give them jobs? Why not pay them £25/hr to maintain council property? It's jobs and money they want, not the chance to sit around and talk about not having them! We have all seen the run down nature of council housing stock. Why not pay job seekers £25 an hour to maintain the buildings and the land? If the answer is, 'councils don't have the money', then there are a couple of solutions to that too. Firstly you could stop paying the outrageous fees you already do pay to subcontract service companies, and secondly, you could stop paying the outrageous wages you already do pay to those many layers and layers of council staff you need to employ to justify their wages. All without having to tax the British public or increase the national debt. But then we can't have councils making real savings and helping to poor can we? Better they just pass the cuts on to the public and make them suffer instead? Good old politics at its best. We're alright, Jack. You go and sign on, I need to strike about my pension privileges. The hypocrisy in the system is matched only by its inefficiency and lack of accountability. We all know the system is broken and who is to blame, but we all continue to accept it, fund it, and prop it up. Go figure.

My, profoundly disabled, step-daughter has never worked and never will.

Since moving from DLA to ESA (which is paid at a lower rate) two years ago, her benefits have been frozen. It is likely that this situation will continue for the next 5 years if there a benefits freeze, by which time she will probably be 10 -15% worse off.

If a society is judged on how it treats it's weakest members, ours is heading the wrong way.

P.S. She has never watched JK as far as I'm aware.

oh so some people do want jobs after all

well I am glad that has been cleared up

£25 ph that is a very good wage of 8 hours a day, lets say 50 weeks a year that is a wage of 50k (2 weeks unpaid holiday)

I do not think anyone who was capable of doing such work and was unemployed would turn that down

yet top earners pay 5% less tax than what they did a few years ago

its criminal that you step daughter should have to struggle financially as if life for her and family is not difficult enough I do not understand how this can even be allowed