School children should receive free bus travel before pensioners?

[Itchthescratch]

My child is starting a school where it will cost around £2k for bus travel. This school is local and one of the closest schools to us. The other schools close to us are much worse in terms of opportunities and academic outcomes. I can afford the bus fare easily but I worry that some poorer families will really struggle to send their children to the higher achieving school because of the cost.

I understand that there isn't an endless pot of money but surely it would make sense to give school children free travel ahead of other groups like pensioners? School children are statistically much more likely to suffer from poverty (child poverty is almost double pensioner poverty)and it seems crazy that we aren't supporting social mobility whilst we let all pensioners travel for free on buses.

I don't feel sorry for him. I'm sorry that he's left and we won't get his tax revenue anymore. As I posted, 40,000 teachers like your mum pay the same amount of tax as this one man. Her contribution towards public coffers is peanuts in comparison. It doesn't mean her work didn't matter or she didn't contribute anything but pure maths tells us that people like this man are essential if we are serious about funding the kinds of public services and benefits that we all seems to want.

It's in all our interests that these people that pay lots of taxes don't leave because we have effectively killed the golden goose by insisting that we can tax them ever more. This approach would only work if they couldn't move abroad when most can and are being actively courted by other countries.

Of course I'm not wrong about PIP. Why do you think the rules for PIP aren't more lenient when everyone knows that plenty of people are struggling with health conditions and currently aren't eligible? It is literally because the pot is only so big. In an ideal world more people would be eligible but fiscal constraints mean the state can't fund this.

Why wasn't the council housing replaced? Money again. Local Councils had to send money raised through sales back to the national government or use it to pay off local council debt. The money raised was never enough to replace the housing lost anyway and it would have required billions to find the gap. We have been running at a budget deficit for a few decades now. We don't have billions floating around for house building

Scottish people pay a bit more tax and are subsidised. They use this money to fund the things you describe. I don't really know what your point is? English people have consistently indicated in polls they don't want to pay more tax and would prefer to cut spending.

I'm sure there are poor pensioners. Nobody says there aren't. There are less of them though than there are poor children.

You are wrong. People get Pip if they meet the descriptors. An assessor doesn't sit going Im going to turn this person down because there's not enough money in the pot. As I said previously assessors don't always get the decisions right. Some people will have health conditions but you get Pip based on how those conditions affect your daily life. There are people who are disabled who won't meet the Pip or ADP descriptors.

Many people get it at tribunal. It's not an easy process. I got Lcwra at tribunal on attempt number 3.

Yes Scotland is subsided but it's not as if we give nothing to the UK economy.

I'm quite aware of child poverty. The Scottish government also gives a child poverty payment to families who qualify and that's one of the reasons free school meals were introduced

My point is that pensioners shouldn't lose their bus passes.

Yes that's right. Because she was a teacher on a salary and not a hedge fund billionaire

You aren't understanding at all. Of course indidvial assessors don't deny applicants based on there not being enough money in the pot. They use the descriptors etc but who defines the descriptors and decides how many points are needed to be awarded PIP? It absolutely is financially motivated. Pretending otherwise is just wrong. This is why Labour were trying to reform PIP and introduce the 4 point rule. It was all intended to save money. I'm not wrong. You seem to think the descriptors haven't been designed as part of a system that is supposed to have financial sustainability at its core.

I understand you don't want pensioners to lose their bus passes but your argument just seems to be to get super rich people to pay for bus passes for everyone. It's pie in the sky. Of course it makes you look very #kind and probably makes you feel like you're a better person for not taking anything away from anybody but in the real world this kind of ideological thinking just drives up debt that future generations are saddled with.

Exactly! She has relied on the private sector and those hedge fund billionaires to pay her salary and her pension. In return she has delivered a vital service to the nation. She needs the billionaires to stay and pay tax.

That's not what you were suggesting initially. You were suggesting that people don't get Pip because there's a limited pot of money. That's not the case. Don't tell me as a disabled person who has been through the process what I think. My argument was NOT to get super rich people to pay for everything. You're the person who started talking about hedge fund billionaires

And now you think I'm saying this because it "makes me look kind ".

Once more -I live in Scotland where both sets of people get bus passes.

Your child is going to a school where the fare cap won't decrease her bus fare yes. Tenner a day. 2k a year. So how would lower income families be able to afford those fares. That bus company is rinsing you. That's the issue. I went on a 140 mile round trip last year with a private bus company. 25 quid.

How would pensioners not getting bus passes help your child access cheaper fares to school

How many billionaires don't pay their share of tax. How many companies don't pay their fair share (Amazon and more).

As I've said before on this thread, there are two net contributing regions in the whole of the UK. City of London and the SE.

The third highest region in terms of contributing is Scotland.

We therefore aren't subsidised as much as every single other region in the UK.