more welfare cuts what do people predict?

[mrshess]

In the news that there is to be an extra 4 billion cuts on top of the 11 billion cuts to be announced in Oct to target long term claimants. What do people think they are going to cut and how?

HIP will go

CB may be reduced or limited to a certain number of children

Further changes to housing benefit

(and wrt the NHS - we are already being subjected to 30% cuts in real terms. the media keep reporting the ringfencing - which is true - but the vat rise will cost loads more and the tariffs for work being carried out have gone down and there's less research money being generated so in reality the budget has gone down)

I am not optomistic.

Did you see the Health Minister (secretary?) being interviewed on Daybreak?
He was questioned about the case of a man diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. He had been denied ESA (Incapacity Benefit). The wanker's minister's reply to this?

Look at Richard Hawkings, he has had it for years and has done really well for himself.

So theres your answer. Been diagnosed with a disease with an average life expectancy of 14 mths? Become a fucking genius or fucking starve.

And the woman with terminal cancer whose benefits were stopped because she wasnt terminally ill anymore. Well she was actually but she had managed to survive more than 6 mths so bye bye support.

It takes me back to my teenage years and NOT in a good way.

Stephen Hawking!

Anyway...

Unbelievable response to that question. Things are going to get very bad very quickly.

I think the point people miss (people like my DH who is a Tory FGS) is that the tories don't give a flying fuck about anyone except for themselves and their mates. They have never cared about what happens to poor people, to poor children, even to average people, ordinary people in the middle. They are in the top 10%, their eyes are fixed on teh top 10%, everyone else is irrelevant.

How do people delude themselves, time and time again, that this is not the case?

Well they're prob in the top 1% but YKWIM

Those people without jobs and unable to support themselves will have to move into a large building where they will separated from their families be forced to eat gruel while the rich look on in pity and disdain. Back to the good old days before this pesky welfare state

(sorry in deeply cynical and sarcastic mood tonight)

I can't find that Andrew Lansley / daybreak interview on youtube . Although if I see it I might explode .

We're going to have riots when this all starts to bite. I can feel it in my bones.

Yeah I know! I always get them mixed up, Richard, Steven, Hawkings, Dawkins.

I thought they were the same person for ages and got very

Still, you get the gist..

Daybreak is even lighterweight than GMTV if that were possible! It was a soundbite thingy. I am really shocked it didnt cause a huge outcry. Bloody hell Ministers have bee forced to resign for less!

And I reckon this is going to send us right back into recession.

OK - you need to cut but really does it need to be done at this rate? When there are few jobs to go to.

What the heck are they doing to stimulate the economy.

giveitago I'm sure it will.

I know so many people who have already been made redundant or working for companies who are constantly cutting back. Now is not the time to go on a spending spree.

They are not interested in the economy. They are interested in destorying the traditional labour voter base - the poor.

They are finishing Thatchers work.

Why the hell did we vote out GB?

Come back, all is forgiven!

I do firmly believe we need to reform welfare - but this isn't the long term reform that's needed just cutting back.

The have such a high welfare bill but yet such low social mobility. Something's not right there. It's like we hold people back.

I don't think right now is the best time to cut back on it so dramatically. This is something labour should have done when the economy was doing fine.

it is all very well reforming welfare but when you have someone like phillip green evading £285 million in tax per year - pehaps we should look at reforming tax so that loop holes are closed.

it is all very well that he creats jobs and those people are paying tax - they asren't earning more that the minimum wages and therefore with a large % the goverment are laos subsidisng Phillips greens staff wages, how can that be right?

The welfare system is incredibly complex, wasteful and open to abuse. The £95bn spent on welfare is about one third of gov't expenditure and it's going to take a root and branch approach to decide a) what is welfare for? and b) what can we afford? Tax rules are equally complex, wasteful and open to abuse... witness the cock-up on the the PAYE system. So it's not an 'either or', it's a 'both and'...

Where will the money come from in the welfare budget..? I think the invalidity benefits will be looked at long and hard. There will be more pressure for people to go back to work - any work, rather than receive benefits long-term. And I think the universal Winter Fuel Allowance can't go on for much longer

95bn? Where did you get that figure from - was around £135bn in 2008/2009 - with £65bn of that made up of pensions.

ESA is a TINY amount from the budget, and "any work" - well that's all well and good when they're slashing jobs, there are few jobs to be found over 16hrs a week, and if you work 15hrs or less you don't get WTC, AND lose your benefits so are basically out on the street

winter fuel allowance was brought in to stop pensioners dying in their homes.

yes let's ditch that first off.

I have to admit those figures sound out of kilter to me, there was an excellent diagram someone on another thread linked to, will try to find it.

here

\link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/17/uk-public-spending-departments-money-cuts#zoomed-picture\this one} ISNT?

Problem with winter fuel allowance is that it's paid to people that DON'T need it as well, wealthy pensioners who use it to go on holiday, or those living in the south of France......

thanks for that mamottat, it is a good diagram.

Whether the winter fuel allowance should be means tested is a different question - is it cost effective to means test, will it prevent the people who need the money from accessing it.

'Ah okay - £36K income will be the top limit for WTC.'

WTC stops at about £16500. Gross. Per couple/domestic partners.

CTC is probably the one you're thinking of!

As for riots, I don't see it. This country has a strong history of apathy, not rioting.

I can remember riots in my lifetime

There are thousands of job vacancies nationally. Trouble is that people argue they don't 'fit'... don't pay enough or it's the wrong hours or not the field they trained in etc. I think we'll find that beggars increasingly can't afford to be choosers.

Winter fuel allowance being paid to pensioners on a good income is just as unfair as it was to pay CTC to middle-income families. The majority of pensioners are nowhere near the poverty line... remember the ones queueing at Northern Rock to withdraw substantial savings? No-one has the guts to dispense with it at the moment but there's another couple of billion we could use elsewhere.

I misread your post chil, I thought you were angling to ditch the winter fuel money altogether. Sorry about that.

The reason it was universal in teh first place was that older people apparently are very resistent to the idea of being "on benefits", with an addiitonal problem that they wer ebeing put off by paperwork. I'm sure the reason it was universal in teh first place was because they thought that if it was means tested it wouldn't go where it was needed.

I don;t understand why they don't do one form for everyone, and then just give them what they're entitled to. The repetition of information for all teh different agencies is ridiculous. If I could tell one agency my circs and income, and they'd just give me some money (or not), then it would be much cheaper to run surely.