egohaslanded, you might want to watch this and related videos www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGHbbJ5xz3g&feature=related. Obama talking about how societies like the US (and here) have an empathy defecit. I think he might have had someone like you in mind. We judge societies by how they care for its most vulnerable members; you seem to be advocating for a Darwinistic survival of the fittest: people who are 'strong', rich etc. survive; people who are poor, disabled etc. are fucked. How is that fair?
Tax credits are a lifesaver for many. I was lucky enough (I'm being sarcastic in one sense but sincere in another) to become a single parent under Labour. I was still at uni and quite young. I had managed all As at A-level and my tutors at uni convinced me that I had the brains to still pass my degree even with a baby and doing minimal work. I had one more year to do, and only had to be in uni for a few hours a week, so decided to carry on. I had all my childcare paid and the same when I trained to become a teacher.
When I became a teacher, I earned £18k in my first year. Not a bad salary, but horrendous when my childcare costs were £900 a month (£9800 a year). Tax credits pretty much paid for my childcare, without which I would not have been able to survive financially.
Without tax credits, I would not have been able to gradually work my way up to a salary that means that I virtually qualify for no tax credits - even the severely disabled elements are lost due to income. But financially, I am only where I am today because the support was there in the first place. What would have been better? Staying at home till my son went to school? In retrospect, that might have actually been better for me and for him, but my family were so anti-benefits and the benefits people were so aggressive about getting me off benefits when I finished teacher training that I did apply for a job just to shut everyone up.
I actually love my job, and am considered very good at it . I am glad I do it, but never forget that Labour enabled me to do it!
But someone like me can't win: stay at home and get whinged at for being a scroungy single parents or go to work and get whinged at for subsidising my income with tax credits.
Oh, that's right: single parents are all bad and evil. Well, single parents aren't created happily in general: death, divorce, domestic violence etc. etc.
And however an adult finds themselves in poverty, whether it's by choice or bad luck or circumstances, I find it a very sad thing if their child should have to suffer, so how can getting rid of financial support be justified?
This thread has made me very sad in places and people like theEgo really need to get their heads out of their smug, self-satisfied arses and imagine what it is like to be someone else and maybe consider not sniping and judging about that other person's lifestyle. And as for wishing that other people's lives would be made harder...well, I just hope that your children grow up nicer than you.