To think there is no more money?

[Rainbowsponge]

And Labour have admitted this.

So many threads saying X or Y needs to be ‘properly funded’ (even though most of the time our spending is actually in line with comparable countries), but no acknowledgment of the fact there’s no money to spend.

And when you bring it up, posters completely ignore you or accuse you of being Jacob Rees Mogg

Wouldn’t the quality of debate be improved if we stopped burying our heads in the sand?

Everyone gets annoyed about big companies performing perfectly legal tax avoidance, but think nothing of paying a tradesman 'cash in hand' if it means getting the job done a bit cheaper.

Everyone thinks everyone else needs to pay more tax, not them.

I read that you need to earn £40k+ to be a net contributor (quick Google search).
That is well over the average wage.

If they can spend 700 million on a harebrained gimmick like Rwanda, they can spend it on starving kids IMO

I disagree with pp that there is no political will to tax big business and billionaires.

Successive governments have attempted it. It would be a vote winner for sure.

But it's not that easy. Tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion is difficult to prove. Billionaires and businesses can base themselves anywhere. Nobody wants them to pack up their offices and factories and move to Europe. Quite the opposite, we want them investing and recruiting in the UK.

What will be raised won’t cover the popcorn.

All the ‘clawing back covid money’ talk is a massive political scam.

Complete waste of money. It’s all long gone.

I would love to see baroness bra strap go to jail though. She could share a cell with Paul Vennells.

Agreed. But there is always money for a pay raise.

Exactly! There’s £3billion a year every year for aid (weapons) to Ukraine….same amount needed to scrap the 2 child benefit cap.

Would they though? More likely to be low skilled, poor grasp of English. On a NMW job any small amount of tax would be dwarfed by what they take from the public purse by way of UC, housing, education, NHS. And wait til they get old.

There's some romantic notion in this country that all asylum seekers are fit and healthy homeowners-to-be, just champing at the bit to pay 40% tax.

The reality is somewhat different. Just look around you.

@XenoBitch Surely healthy childfree people need to earn less? Some people use nothing more than roads, bins, etc.

And everyone moans about foreign aid but we don't do it out of kindness. We pay to protect our interests whether that's to encourage trade with those countries, or to stop immigration at source.

This,

The thing is that governments always find money for the things they consider to be important. They will get what they need to fund their priorities. From somewhere.

@AgathaMystery MPs salaries are recommended by an independent body, not by MPs.

It's 650 people. They could multiply them by 100 and it would be negligible.

When they stop dropping bombs and stop building towards a nuclear holocaust, I'll believe there's no money left.

I cannot see why we should remove the two child cap. Having more than two children is a luxury. If you can't afford to look after your family, don't have the third.

Yes things change but for most families affected it's about planning.

@MidnightPatrol sorry I thought it was obvious. I meant the funding model of paying it forward.

The idea was that the deterrent effect would save the uk money in the long run.

It's also a drop in the ocean. The nhs cost £200 billion in 2022.

I read that you need to earn £40k+ to be a net contributor (quick Google search).
That is well over the average wage

So many are paid low wages & then millions of pounds of people tax is used to prop those wages up reducing costs from their employers. Then we pay millions more in housing benefit into landlords as there isn’t enough social housing.

Of course there is money, we are the fifth largest economy in the world. There was money when the conservatives blew how every many billions on that spreadsheet that crashed and failed to track and trace any Covid, there was money for all of their hare-brained schemes like Rwanda and so on. There just wasn't money for the public services or poor people or disabled people, since they are irrelevant to their little bubbles.

I'm surprised people are angry about spending on defence, particularly in Ukraine. What are the long term ramifications of allowing Russia to invade European countries without any push back?

I don’t begrudge anyone - including MPs - a pay raise. I am just commenting that whenever the independent body has recommended a raise, MPs have always voted in favour of it. It would be lovely if we could see similar for carers or teachers or nurses…. Or anyone really.

I guess I should just vote that the OP IBU. There is enough money. It is simply mis-spent.

I disagree with pp that there is no political will to tax big business and billionaires.

same, but as you say you need global initiatives.

Not everyone on under £40k is being propped up.
My DP is on £30k and claims no benefits.
I used to be on 14k (this was actually 14 years ago), and I was not entitled to any!
But yes, I agree on your point about HB. A lot of the welfare cost is going to landlords.

Exactly as said in Gary economics

I cannot see why we should remove the two child cap. Having more than two children is a luxury. If you can't afford to look after your family, don't have the third

hardly anyone has 3 dc, people aren’t even having 1 dc.