Benefits reform - and then they came for the blind!

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www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fury-as-blind-people-hit-by-benefit-reform-7754452.html

Blind people often use their benefits payment to facillitate working btw are the latest group under attack.

There is a petition if anyone cares enough to register their disgust. epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20968

David Cameron is asking for a further 25 billion in Welfare Cuts -

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...fare-cuts.html

However for those that think they are not ill or disabled and it won't affect them - read the following extract -

The savings will be made from cutting back benefits for people of working age. However, the Work and Pensions Secretary has privately indicated that pensioner benefits should also be re-considered in future, but not for people who have already retired.

sadly people don't realise they are only a car crash or fever away from disability so don't care

2shoes is right. Most people think they are immortal and untouchable.

I don't think it's that people don't care. It's more the fact we don't have enough money to pay for everything we had previously been paying for. Therefore cuts must be made. And whilst it's really really unfortunate that benefits are being cut, it's one of the biggest expenditure for the government and if you include pensions it is THE biggest outgoing.

Therefore if you are serious about balancing the books then it only makes sense to make cuts to benefits. Otherwise if we ring fence one group of people then other groups must face deeper cuts.

Every single part of government has had cuts imposed upon them. Each section could probably argue why they should be spared and point to the good work they do. But when the money isn't there, it isn't there. Whatever you decide to cut, someone will be unhappy.

On this particular issue of blind people it appears the main issue is the criteria being proposed unfairly disadvantages blind people. Hopefully some pressure from the electorate, media and other MP's will make the government tweak the rules.

Well borrowing money continuously is not helpful either is it? Yet that's exactly what we're doing.

Like I said, you can argue cuts are bad for everything and that it's a false economy. For example, cutting the police budget will mean less police on the streets, more crime which also pushes costs up for people who suffer and also insurance since more people will claim.

As for your point about us pretending to be a big player, I wholeheartedly agree and the sooner we stop trying to pretend to be some global superpower the better.

Don't get me wrong, my dad is registered blind and also works. So I am incredibly sympathetic to this issue but at the same time like I said, if there's no money, there's no money. Cuts have to made somewhere. Take your pick. I bet someone will object.

But a large part of the extra borrowing by the Tories is to fund the social welfare bill caused by the rising unemployment rate.

Niceguy, they will be taking DLA of 500 000 people. The fraud rate is 0.5%, so most of those 500 000 people are genuinely disabled. It will be chucking them on the scrap heap. If they take my DLA I won't even be able to leave my house (Monday-Friday), let alone go to work (if I had a job). How is that good for anyone?

I get they need to balance the books, but there has to be other ways. Perhaps they shouldn't have reduced the higher rate tax, perhaps they should go after those who avoid paying tax. Perhaps they should look at who they pay the foreign aid to and what they do with it? Going after disabled people is just plain wrong, and I can't believe anyone would defend it!

The other ways pretty much involve cutting deeper elsewhere to protect one part of the budget at the expense of others.

So what areas do you think should be cut deeper than they already are? Education? Police? NHS?

The tax thing is a red herring. We're overspending by so much that even if we move the income tax rate to 100% for high earners over £150k per year and force them at gunpoint to stay in the UK, we'd still have a deficit.

Raising taxes on higher income earners is not a realistic option. The only common sense solution (albeit unpallatable) is to make cuts.

It is wrong that disabled people have to face cuts. But then there's nothing right about the way we've run our nation's finances for the last thirty years either. And now it's time to pay for those mistakes.

how about cutting
the high speed train thing?
money sent abroad?
tax cuts for the rich?
there are lots of other ways
but sending disabled people into poverty should not be one of them.

"temporarily able bodied " love that and shall steal it

Oh, I don't know. I suspect rather than a cut, an increase in the tax rate for the mega rich might do the trick. Or how about closing some of the loopholes like the one that allows Amazon to pay no tax at all.

Vodaphone and the cosy little deals to avoid corporate tax could be reasssesed as well.....

How about pulling out of Iraq and Aghanistan. Also srap the aircraft carrier changes or scrap the bloody lot!

To be fair 2old we are not in Iraq and are planning to be pulling out of Afghanistan in 2015 IIRC. We do need an aircraft carrier, at the end of the day the country does need a defence mechanism.

There are loads of ways that they could start pulling money back in before they take DLA from genuinely disabled people.

How about scrapping MPs expenses? Why not make them live in a building not dissimilar to a mess where many of our Armed Forces live all week? They could be charged for the privilidge like the forces are too. My DH is going to have to either do that or do a 100 mile round trip commute from June because he is posted. If it's good enough for him, and hundreds like him, why not MPs?

Why hit the most vulnerable? Why not hit those who, let's be honest, wouldn't notice if they lost £60 a week?

Increaseing tax for the mega rich does not work as they nearly always have clever accountants who find a way round this.

Maybe the basic rate for everyone needs to go up....

It's the same story again. None of those complaining about 'the cuts' have the faintest idea just how much taxpayers' money the UK government spends. This year it'll spend £722 Billion, broken down in the following major areas:

Pensions: £137.5 Billion
Healthcare: £122.5 Billion
Education: £89.5 Billion
Welfare: £110.2 Billion
Defence: £43.5 Billion

The HS2 line will cost about £40Bn over its lifetime, which is the equivalent of 4 months spending on the NHS.
Raising tax on 'the rich' won't bring in any money.
'Money sent abroad' - presumably you're referring to foreign aid? That's £12Bn a year, or enough money to run the NHS for 5 weeks.
Tax rises on corporates? Well if it was that easy to collect the money, then I'm sure it would have happened by now. Let's pretend, though, that we can claim that £10Bn or so. That'll run the NHS for 4 weeks.
Scrapping the carriers will save £20Bn over 10 years, £2Bn a year - or enough to pay the welfare budget for 5 1/2 days.

None of those suggestions will make any difference to the long-term costs of running the state.

Look, nobody thinks that cutting welfare is nice or good or fun. But seriously, you can't expect us to keep paying out for these things. It is criminally irresponsible to keep spending and spending and failing to deal with the country's debts? What do you think is going to happen? You think we're going to just be able to consolidate all our debts in to one easy-to-repay monthly amount?

If the UK defaults because we can't support our debt load (which is about £3 Trillion), everything goes. Pensions, welfare, education, healthcare, the lot.

I can't begin to articulate just how frightened you should be at the prospect and if you really understood how much trouble we're in I'm sure we'd see an end to article after article bemoaning welfare cuts.

*Oh, I don't know. I suspect rather than a cut, an increase in the tax rate for the mega rich might do the trick. Or how about closing some of the loopholes like the one that allows Amazon to pay no tax at all.

Vodaphone and the cosy little deals to avoid corporate tax could be reasssesed as well.....*

Raising the tax rate on the mega rich isn't easy. Firstly they already pay a lot of tax. The top 1% pay a quarter of all our income tax. In addition a lot of rich people actually don't earn their money here, they just come to spend it. So people like Abramovich for example. He's a Russian gazillionaire who uses London as his plaything. How do we tax him?

As I have explained before, Amazon legally set itself up in Luxembourg and they sell throughout the EU. This is pretty much the whole point of the EU in so far as any company in any EU nation can freely trade with another and only pay taxes in their home country. Amazon however do bring jobs to the UK and collect VAT for the UK govt. But no, they don't pay corporation tax at all and it's pretty much by the design of the EU governments.

Vodafone? Are you referring to the deal a while back? If so Cinnabared explained this much better than I ever could but the gist of it was that the HMRC were on a bit of a sticky wicket and there was a good chance they could have lost if the matter went to court. So getting a few billion out of Vodafone was better than nothing.

At the end of the day we have to plug a deficit. Scrapping one of things help a little bit but only for a moment. What we need is long term reductions in spending.

"a little bit"
you really have no idea

Why is raising the tax from the rich 'not easy' when taking the money from the most disadvantaged an apparent doodle? Why are those most affected by cuts in their income targeted at the expense of those least affected?

I'm sure you are aware that the wealth of the top 1% increased by the size of the UK deficit over the last 3 years? To suggest that the disadvantaged and disabled should have their income slashed while the mega rich have their income protected is absurd and insulting.

Look, nobody thinks that cutting welfare is nice or good or fun. But seriously, you can't expect us to keep paying out for these things It is criminally irresponsible to keep spending and spending and failing to deal with the country's debts? What do you think is going to happen? You think we're going to just be able to consolidate all our debts in to one easy-to-repay monthly amount?

What do you mean 'these things'? my disabled child? please remember you are talking about people

If the UK defaults because we can't support our debt load (which is about £3 Trillion), everything goes. Pensions, welfare, education, healthcare, the lot I can't begin to articulate just how frightened you should be at the prospect and if you really understood how much trouble we're in I'm sure we'd see an end to article after article bemoaning welfare cuts

Are you serious?

How frightened we should be?

Disabled people and parents of disabled people are absolutely fucking terrified at the prospect of the cuts, no one is 'bemoaning' we are genuinely shitting it because this is going to affect us in ways that some of you people who are blessed not to have to worry about such things just dont seem to understand.

Feel terribly sorry for you and others in a simialr situation amberleaf

I had to go to my local job centre today (have been out of work 6 mths moved from income support this week to JSA) and the lady told me they had a new manager move in and they have been told they have to move 90 clients from their books (previously 40) a week....so I asked "where do they go if there are no jobs?"....some are moved to sickness benefit....wtf!

Its just a big shitty mess and the number crunchers with all their stats are having a busy time trying to make it look like the economy is getting better...its just crap...until there are jobs for the unemployed to go into the economy will not improve...then make some cuts but not to the vulnerable to the filthy rich corps that pay their tax gurus a mint to move the cash around witholding tax....

at the moment, every working household pays £2k per year just on interest payments on our national debts. if we hadnt overspent in the past, we wouldnt be here. but we did.

Greece is a county that overspent and didnt stop.

Mmmm because dogmatic austerity works doesn't it niceguy

iggly - the US will be far less affected by the Euro crisis because they sell only 25% of their exports to the Euro zone whereas we sell 50% of our exports.

AmberLeaf

What do you mean 'these things'? my disabled child? please remember you are talking about people

I appreciate that it is personal for you but I was talking about welfare, education, the NHS. Don't try to make this in to a 'you hate my disabled child' issue because it isn't.

^Are you serious?

How frightened we should be?^

I am 100% serious. And you should be seriously frightened because no government, Labour or Tory, will level with you. You should make sure you're not overextended on credit in any way because, if things go pear-shaped we'll end up like Greece. Did you know we spend the equivalent of half our welfare budget just paying the interest on our loans? Not paying the loans off, just paying the interest. I haven't even mentioned the deficit in the state pension system which means we won't be able to pay the old age pension from about 2020, or the deficit in the public sector pension which means that nobody who enters the public sector will see their pension when they retire. Because of Labour we're in for 30 years of tight spending. Labour didn't deal with the public sector pensions deficit, they didn't deal with the state pension deficit, and they threw money around like it was going out of fashion without a care about who was going to pay it back.

Disabled people and parents of disabled people are absolutely fucking terrified at the prospect of the cuts, no one is 'bemoaning' we are genuinely shitting it because this is going to affect us in ways that some of you people who are blessed not to have to worry about such things just dont seem to understand.

I agree, I'm lucky to be healthy and unaffected by welfare cuts. That doesn't make me a bad person for not wanting the country to go under due to untramelled spending.

All this spending that you need, this spending that Gordon Brown chucked at every 'good cause', has been paid for on the government's credit card, and the debtors are about to come along and cut that card up.