Benefits reform - and then they came for the blind!

[bochead]

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.

No-ones arguing that cuts aren't necessary, but it is a crock of shit to think that there are 500 000 disabled people lording it up on DLA who aren't entitled to it. DLA has the lowest fraud rate, so genuinely disabled people are going to lose their benefits, which can be helping them get to work, paying for their care, their car or their therapy. It's criminal, in my mind.

There are other ways. How about stopping the OAPs who live in warmer climates having their winter fuel allowance? What about not giving it to people like my parents and PILs who have in excess of 100K in the bank?

I'm getting sick of hearing how hard it would be to take a little bit more from the rich, or that they already pay more in tax than every body else. TBH I don't flipping care, so they should they can bloody well afford it!

Why should OAP's who are not on means tested benefits get winter fuel allowance. As oap's DH and I are just above the pension credit threshold we do not need our winter fuel allowance. We gave it to Shelter

I think the cuts are beyond necessary. Yes cuts are needed but the ones being proposed are blatantly ideological.

Cuts alone will not help. Why the jeff should the public pay for the financial crisis? It's outrageous.

the banks were given loans (about half of which have been paided back) and guarentees because it was less bad than the banking system failing.

we rely on banks for 10% of our nations taxes. should should not have got ourselves into this position but we did.

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

Well sorry but in agreeing with the cuts [to disabled/carers benefits] I feel like you do hate my disabled child [and every other disabled person and their carers] cuts, maybe but cutting money that very vulnerable people rely on is criminal, not to mention how much money carers like myself save the government.

Yes it is very personal because I am being told that my child doesnt matter, that there are things that are more important and worthy of being saved from the cuts than my child.

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

Credit?! har har! I cant afford credit, I am a carer for my disabled child so my earning potential is rather low.

DPs brother and uncle have lived on IB for years (10+ & 20+ years). everyone in their family thinks they are milking the system.

they have wasted their lives. the current system does not work, in many different ways. it should have been reformed years ago.

There is so much outrage (rightly) about the banks but I don't see a similar level of outrage about the millions of Joe publics who maxed out their credit cards - a mirror image of what the last Government was doing.

As Liam Byrne, former Treasury Secretary in the Labour Government famously said to his successor "There's no money left - good luck".

"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."

I will tell you what is frightening,
knowing that my child will be living in poverty, that because she is disabled she will be dumped on the poverty scrap heap, without DLA she cannot afford to be disabled.
I suggest people who post stuf like the above actually look into what DLA is for and how expensive being disabled is.

Amberleaf you speak my language why oh why are they picking on the disabled. As a mum of 5 with SN who are not capable of working (ok 2 are still at school) I am so stressed over all these assessments.DS4 cost this country £5000/wk in care. In total our DC's over 30/yrs we have saved this bloody country £3,000,000 excluding our 3 who died. I am sick and tired of my family being classed as scroungers.
Breakdown of family to clarify
1)DS downs,deaf epilepsy (poorly controlled)
2)DD downs, severe heart defect pacemaker drop attacks asthma
3)DD downs,heart defect congestive pulmonary disorder
All adults any jobs going?
4)DS 13 deafblind CP epilepsy
5)DD 6 emanuel syndrome-God knows
Not meaning to go on I am not alone there are so many in my position yes we chose this but so many parents did not.

And you dear old 2shoes so cross I xposted

it is so scary that the people who back these cuts are so clueless

Amberleaf
^Well sorry but in agreeing with the cuts [to disabled/carers benefits] I feel like you do hate my disabled child [and every other disabled person and their carers] cuts, maybe but cutting money that very vulnerable people rely on is criminal, not to mention how much money carers like myself save the government.

Yes it is very personal because I am being told that my child doesnt matter, that there are things that are more important and worthy of being saved from the cuts than my child.^

I recognise that as the mother of that child you won't think that anything is more important than him/her. And if you want to take your rage against the system out on me then fine. I've got a thick skin. But I haven't lied to you. The money isn't there to pay all this welfare money out now, and it won't be there for decades.

Luckily I don't have to make the kind of decisions the government has to make. I don't have to decide "Should I let pensioners freeze to death this year, or should I cut hospital beds for terminally ill children?" Because that is the reality of government. Everyone is needy, everyone has their hand out and the pot of money is never big enough no matter how much you take off people.

Credit?! har har! I cant afford credit, I am a carer for my disabled child so my earning potential is rather low.

Not being able to afford credit didn't stop hundreds of thousands of people taking it out. In 2006 you could get a 125% mortgage without evidence of the means to pay it back.

Why do we have to cut? Why can't we invest instead?

Why are private companies and landlords taking taxpayers money for transport infrastructure, accommodation, utilities, health, education etc etc.

These cuts do NOT have to happen. They are happening because the government has a convenient excuse to speed though policies to make the rich richer.

missing the point much?
do you not get it at all?
please actually look into it and find out what you are talking about

xpost that was to flatpackhamster

To be honest to all of you who are despair at times without you I would give up so to you all. I so pissed off with the cruel cuts and those who think they are justifiable.

I recognise that as the mother of that child you won't think that anything is more important than him/her. And if you want to take your rage against the system out on me then fine. I've got a thick skin

No, im not 'taking my rage against the system' out on you, im reacting to your blinkered opinions.

back at ya 2old and everyone else [who has a clue and a heart]

There are plenty of ways we could make 'cuts' without attacking the innocent and vulnerable. How about this for instance?
I agree we can't keep on borrowing money, but why are we borrowing it just to give it away to those who don't even want it? Why would it cause 'political embarrassment' to stop giving aid to another country, yet it apparently isn't at all embarrassing that we can't look after our own disabled and elderly?

I'm a bit confused - I thought this thread was related to disabled people getting an allowance that would help many to work and contribute to the economy/pay taxes? DLA also enables many carers to work.

On the other hand, when you do a full day's work for a company like Arcadia and don't earn a living wage and therefore have to claim benefits, who is being subsidised - the worker or the person they work for?

Maybe the government didn't think through the implications of cutting this particular benefit and will amend it. However, shouldn't a government who has been in power for 2 years, and had plenty of time to do research before that, have 'thought it through'?

"But then there's nothing right about the way we've run our nation's finances for the last thirty years either."

Well at least you're blaming Thatcher too.

We can argue the technicalities of debt all we like but the fact is that this Govt have made their cuts by feeding the public a mass of propoganda about "scroungers" getting something for nothing and "who probably are not disabled anyway".
Just look at the figures for abuse of the disabled - it's gone way up since this contemptuous bunch of bastards came to power.

The Government, and IDS in particular have spent the last two years attacking disabled people via the DM and other papers with a similar mind set.

Many people need DLA to work! I dont know the figures but surely a cut in DLA will only mean an increase in ESA because people cannot access work without it. We have a duty to look after the most vulnerable.

We can be a country on the brink of bankruptcy without being morally bankrupt.

We are not on the brink of bankruptcy. If we were, we wouldn't have a AAA rating as a country. This government have successfully fed the public a load of lies. Yes we need the deficit but To scaremonger and pretend that we're about to default on interest payments of debt is a load of crock.

We are also not in this together.

The rich get richer. The last time there was such a divide between rich and poor in the US was before the last great depression in the 1930s.

Making the rich richer and kicking the vulnerable does not create wealth for all or growth. It never has and never will.

2shoes

I'm not missing the point at all. You are missing the point. The point is not that being disabled is expensive. The point is that the money to pay for welfare comes from the taxpayer or from borrowing. The borrowing taps are being turned off, leaving us with a smaller puddle of money to spend on this stuff.

Iggly

We are on the brink of bankruptcy. When all the liabilities are included (PFI, public sector pension deficit, state pension deficit) we have the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the world. We're lucky we've still got our AAA rating because it's the only thing that's keeping our debts cheap.

It doesn't matter whether 'the rich get richer'. That doesn't make the poor poorer. This isn't Fiscal Mercantilism, and there isn't a causal link. You might as well say 'It rains on bank holidays and the poor get poorer'.

Pixel

I agree with you that we shouldn't be giving money to India. Do you know what it was done? It was done so that India would buy our Typhoons. They bought French Rafales. So our money was wasted.
BAE systems, which builds the Typhoon, is basically running our overseas aid budget. Did you know they also successfully pushed for the jump jet F-35s for the new carriers, despite the fact that they're three times the price and don't work yet?