AIBU to want spending cuts rather than more tax rises?

[PinkFruitbat]

The foundations are being laid for more tax rises in the October Budget.

https://www.ft.com/content/6d43b599-3d7c-471c-88c2-0f056475a840?syn-25a6b1a6=1

AIBU to ask for savings in spending to help balance the budget rather than more taxes.

With welfare spending at nearly £1bn each day, when is enough, enough?

The two child benefit cap should be reinstated. I know it’s controversial, but it was a fair policy.

The child with the million pounds care package must have very high needs. My adult son's who needs 3:1, isn't that much.

100% the two child benefit cap should be reinstated. I’m not a fan of shafting elderly people who’ve paid tax all their lives, but I reckon we should shape society going forward and the professional scroungers could be deterred early on.

This. I swear some people just want to see the poor suffer more.

This shows that you have not thought any of this through and just selfishly want more in your pocket.

Do you really want to live in a country that refuses to help those who need it? That’s a worrying growing selfish mentality in this country.

Besides that point, a good portion of our foreign aid budget is spent trying to fix things that we started! An example being Afghanistan, a country that we walked into for gain and then decided to walk right out of without fixing anything! So it is morally our duty to support these people given that we caused half their problems!

Cutting welfare will not have the impact that you foresee. Local services are already overwhelmed with the number of people dependent on them, cuts to this would make things inordinately worse. Unless of course by welfare you mean scrapping the triple lock, which is one thing that would make a huge difference.

The child benefit amount does not encourage people to have children, but supports those who are going to have children they can’t afford regardless. This actually means that it supports the children themselves. Again, i am saddened to live in a society that has become so ‘every man for himself’ that we do not want to support the most vulnerable in society.

Reviewing PiP in the way you suggest would likely cost more rather than save more. And by all claimants you are including people who have, say, lost their legs. Will an in person review help to see if they have grown back?

UK manufactured cars are hardly going to save a huge sum of money, and I’d be surprised if the cost of them was much different anyway!

There aren't enough jobs for the people looking for work though. Is it better to have two people working part time or one person working full time?

These days I'm thinking a UBI is the only sensible option.

Look at Nordic countries. Extremely high tax rates but equally extremely high levels of satisfaction in the public. They pay more but their services work! That’s what (sensible) people want

I was in Finland recently and was really impressed by how well things were run - frequent clean public transport, immaculate streets, etc. I looked up their tax rates out of interest and they are essentially the same as here. It’s sliced differently between local/central taxes, and healthcare/pension contributions, but higher earners actually pay slightly less tax than in the UK.

Also their population is only 6 million - maybe that’s a factor?

The biggest thing that would reduce the welfare bill and make work pay would be a massive fall in house prices.

So people who want to cut welfare should either support a massive house building programme or other policy measures to reduce the price of housing.

It's a common misunderstanding that spending money is better for the economy than saving it.

There does need to be enough money flowing around that people can build value - but it is value creation which drives the economy, not value consumption.

Or to put it more simply, £100 saved/ invested and used by a company to build machines which will improve their production by 10% year-on-year (and then spent later) is far better for the economy that that £100 spent on clothes bought from Shein and getting nails done.

Yes, and the reason the care is so expensive is because LA’s closed all the council-run facilities and now has to fund them in the private sector. See also: special schools.

The need doesn’t magically disappear if you take the provision away.

Yes they do have quite high needs. But it's particularly high as the parents are incredibly challenging to work with, so they can only staff with agency workers as nhs nurses refuse to work with them due to the abuse they got, and due to the high turnover it has to be 2 nurses, when could be 1 nurse and 1 hca, or 1 nurse and 1 parent for some of the time. But because Dads a lawyer, and shouted loudly, they get huge package, whilst other families fight for a few respite hours per week.

I'm guessing your 3:1 package are unqualified carers?

I suggest we reinstate it at 3 kids. We do need a net positive population growth. We don’t want to be like Japan.

Again, the key thing is that stuff needs to be made in order to be available to be consumed.

If everyone gets UBI, who will make the stuff you want to buy with that UBI? Why on earth should they bother, if they'll just get the same stuff without working?

UBI is just even higher redistribution than we already have. The more you redistribute the value people create through working, the less incentive there is for them to work.

Triple lock would be the sensible place to start. But it’s tough currently to do much else. It’s not like an 80 year old can go and get a job to make up for their reduction in income.

Once auto enrol filters through this stands a better chance. Personally I’m assuming I’ll get zero state pension and I would hope everyone my age is approaching their financial planning with that in mind.

I've done a quick Google on this. The added costs to health, social care the justice system, reduction in VAT access other taxes, job losses due to reduced spending in the economy would wipe out about half the savings of a 25% cut in welfare.

If the cuts were maintained it's likely all savings would be wiped out over a couple of decades, due to poorer outcomes for the children growing up under the policy (poorer education, poorer health outcomes), lack of job availability etc.

So short term financial savings would likely be incredibly damaging long term to both the economy and individuals.

And let's be honest, in both the short term and long term, vulnerable people would die if this was implemented, and advocating for a blanket 25% cut means this would be considered an acceptable cost to gain the short term savings.

That would fund the NHS for just less than two weeks.
Then what?

With defined contribution schemes, repayments of student loans etc, funding a decent level of retirement with no state pension is going to be very hard. Especially for anyone that takes time out to look after young children.

Yes I want to keep more of my money, I pay too much tax, and watch it being spent on the lazy work shy.

Increasing taxes will have huge knock on effects to the wider economy as working people will have less disposable income.

But where will the rises come from? It's blood out of a stone at this point.

Yep

Well i would for starters. UBI would be set at a pretty low rate, yes it would put a roof over your head and food on the table but I like a bit of luxury in life, a nicer area to live, nice holidays etc etc. I'd work to have extra income to afford things like that.

And yet in the late 1990s and early 2000s, government spending was 33% of GDP - which is 25% lower than the 44% of GDP the government currently spends.

And none of those dire predictions were happening...

Yes, but that doesn't help the local hairdresser stay in employment, or the corner shop stay open, those people end up unemployed and on the 25% less benefits with next to no chance of finding a new job, need to be housed by the council and develop depression and high blood pressure etc.

What's changed then?

Presumably some of that is down to an aging population, and the costs of that, which are huge.