If you pay tax then you should not receive benefits.

[jollydiane]

If you pay tax then you should not receive benefits.

Please explain what is the point of taxing me, only to give me money back in the form of child tax benefits? Surely it is better for me to pay less tax in the first place and not receive the benefit. The end result is less money needed to pay for bureaucrats. We then can maintain front line services. Discuss.

It also makes relativley poorer people 'dependent' on Govt largesse which is what Labour fundamentally wants.

Beenbeta. You've hit the nail on the head but you underestimate the extent of dependence on government largesse.

The problem under Labour is how dependent those on above average incomes have become on benefits/tax credits. How can people on anything up to £58k get tax credits? Moreover, the redistribution didn't just hand out money to the "middle class", it also created thousands of public sector administrative jobs (with final salary pensions) for them.

The political motive is clear as this was the voting constituent that would decide general elections. Labour hoped that turkeys don't vote for xmas, and that Labour would be safe in power for a generation.

This policy seems to be working since even marginal cuts are provoking demonstrations and strikes. People in the UK just don't want to live within their means - they like debt- and they won't accept that the standard of living needs to fall to rebalance the economy. Labour are likely to be back in at the next election.

Isn't the most important and overlooked fact the demographics of this country. This is the time when the biggest cohort of the post war baby boomers start collecting their pension, ie, stop spending and start downsizing, and also the year that the 1960s baby boomers turn age 47, the year at which people traditionally stop spending and start saving. Which leaves us with no upcoming generation to pay for all these pensions, and no consumers to keep the economy going.

We need to start exporting to China, India and Brazil, and well done to Cameron for making major trade trips to both so early in the premiership. It is not great, but, it is where the money will have to come from.

Beta, what are your thoughts on the demographics of those two large groups?

Xenia - Not every person has the opportunity to live as part of an extended family. I was cared for solely by my dad until he died, my mum never wanted me, I ended up in foster care. Which part of my extended family do you propose I live with? My dead father or my mother who abandoned me?? I highly doubt my dc will be moving out of the family home until they are in their late 20's, early 30's, because there is just nowhere they would be able to afford to live, so the extended family living will propbably happen in my family, bit with my children.

I couldn't live with my DP's parents - his mother hates me, and continually puts me down, even as I am helping her do her shopping as she's unable to do it by herself! She refuses to accept my older 2 dc (not DP's), and is verbally abusive towards me. Could you live like that? Could you subject your dc to that?

And who would take a minimum wage job that doesn't cover basic living expenses (and I do mean basic, food, heat light and shelter) if there was no form of top-up. We would end up back in the days of people living in abject poverty, living with up to seven/eight people in one room. Is that something that should be happening in a developed nation in the 21st Century?

It's not that people in the UK don't want to live within their means - it's that their means often cannot cover the basics of life. We have no debt, we couldn't afford to get into debt. If we do not have the money for something, we don't have it! And that includes a new sofa, I bought my sofa for £15 from a charity shop 7 years ago, the springs have gone, the covers are ripped, I am making new covers for it one at a time as and when I can afford the fabric. We don't go on holidays. We pay our bills, feed our dc, do not smoke or drink or have nights out. Yet if we were not in receipt of TC's, we would not be able to pay our rent and feed our children. Some choice!

siasl - yes you are right the boundary of 'dependency' crept up the income scale under Labour. It was cynical and calculated.

Reading MN in the lead up to the election and after it was clear that people on benefits and tax credits and working in the public sector were very fearful of 'Tory cuts'.

I dont blame people being fearful about their personal circumstances but I do blame a Govt that deliberately made people vulnerable and dependent in order to frighten them into voting for them.

BeenBeta - That would be all well and good, but I know of quite a few people that were taken in by Tory lies believed the Conservative manifesto that said that they would not hurt the working poor. Like me for starters. Sometimes turkeys do vote for christmas. .

Loudlass - although I voted Tory and will not be affected by the cuts - I am not at all happy about how they have gone about them. They fell straight into the trap Labour set before the election.

I mean by that, they have hit people like you. Which is morally wrong and politically and economically stupid.

I don't know about economically stupid - Cuts have got to be made somewhere, it's either that or end up like Greece, but politically stupid? DEFINATELY. I for one will probably never vote conservative again, and a lot of people I know in similar situations to me that also voted Tory will also never do so again!

I voted Tory because I felt that Labour had made far too many mistakes during their time in power, like introducing minimum wage, and not raising minimum wage in tune with the rises in housing costs/ costs of living, Like Afghanistan, like the paying of TC's to people that are on double the national average wage. I'm kicking myself now!

Yes, labour cynically made more people state dependent and reliant on the state. Socialists always want that so you can revere your dear leader as in Korea, the state as benefactor and people not responsible for themselves.

the xtended family point is a minor one but if we cannot afford to pay people what we have done to date and even if we can but we think less state dependence is good then in the medium term people may be forced to live with family even if they don't get on too well if there is little alternative than a park bench. They might have to bite their tongue and live with mother in law or as you say live with their adult children so have a good few wages coming into the home of parent and 4 adult 20 somethings etc not such a bad way to live. The luxury of living alone - something I have never had in my adult life or ever - is not something most people can afford nor indeed of being a single parent.

ll, you may well not vote conservative again (even though labour planned 20% cuts and the tories have made 25% so there's nothing much between them) but in 5 years when we have an election I am pretty sure most people will see the benefits and there will be a conservative majority.

I suppose the aim is to make state dependence sufficiently unpleasant that people do go out there and take jobs or move where work is or live with family members or whatever it is. As things stand you can be idel at home and get rent paid up to £20k under the new rules, plus your other benefits or you can go out there and work very hard for low wage jobs. There is not enough disincentive to take the state dependence option. It is not nasty enough.

So how would I persuade my verbally abusive MIL and FIL to move in with us into a house that is already too small? And would I be a responsible parent if I opened up my home to someone who would at best ignore my older 2 dc, at worst be verbally abusive to them too?

And as for the 'luxury' of being a single parent - NO single parent that I know actually chose to be a single parent. One left her H after his THIRD affair when he got the OW pregnant - should she have 'put up' with him impregnating other women? Another divorced her H after spending 2 yrs in various refuges after he tried to stab her while she was holding her 4 week old baby - should she have stayed with him? And the third LP that I know is an LP because his W died of cancer. Did any one of them 'choose' to be an LP?

I certainly have never and will never 'revere' Gordon Brown, in fact I think he was a bit of an oaf, and should never have been running the country, he was unelected, and not capable of doing the job he was meant to be doing. But now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see what Labour were trying to do, but I feel that they did it in the wrong way, and went too far with it.

Doesn't change the fact that without TC's, there are a lot of people out there that will be plunged into insurmountable poverty due to the current costs of living. And in a developed country in the 21st century, that can only be seen as a devastating step backwards.

I must admit, given my previous views on the world, I am rather surprised at how I find myself agreeing with certain 'ideals' of the left (brought up in a staunchly conservative voting family). Yet I feel that Labour's policies over the last 15 years were executed in the wrong way, without enough knowledge of the long-term implications for our country.

And the option of being on benefits is already a worse situation than working hard in a low-paid job, thanks to TC's. Why else would DP be slogging his guts out for the wage he gets? It works out that we as a family are about £40 a month better off with him in work, than being on benefits, after everything is taken into account. (the council tax we have to pay all of, the additional rent we have to pay, the school meals that we have to pay for).

To us, that £40 a month makes it worth our while to be in work. But for anyone on less than £16K pa, they WILL be worse off in work. That needs to change. BUT it's not that JSA needs to be lowered, it's that the wages need to rise. Why does everyone think that JSA should be lowered? It really should be that wages have to rise at the lowest end of the wage scale. JSA is set at the amount that has been worked out to the lowest possible amount that will cover food and utilities. Anything less is not realistic in this day and age.

Having said that, not everyone will work a full 40 hr week only to be £10 a week better off, and that's earning £16K. Would you slog your guts out for the equivalent of being £10 a week better off? DP does because we have something called pride. Not everyone has even heard of a work ethic, never mind actually possessing one!

Good for him. Anyway something needs to be done as we cannot afford the system we currently have.

A universal benefit for all is cheaper to run and if you also cut taxes and allowances and reliefs we might save a lot of money on pointless jobs assessing people's eligibility for benefits and people could instead generate wealth not just be pointless state workers.

It certainly interests me why people endu pas they are and do what they do. There's nothing hugely special about me so how come I've ended up earning in an hour the weekly minmum wage (some hours anyway) and presumably you don't What led one of us on an individual level to that and the other to where they are? not that earnings necessarily correlate to personal contentment either although I do think my greatest luck is good health, mental and physical, certainly not earnings or the other perceived advantages I might have. (interesting radio 4 programme about luck www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vy37b
I see a lot of myself in the lukcy people and my own attitude whether born or made)

With DP the reason he cannot earn much more than he does is because he has learning difficulties, to the point where he attended a 'special school' - Where he was told he would never hold down a job. We like to think that despite his difficulties, he has proved those people wrong.

With me, it boils down to nothing more than bad luck (and maybe dodgy genetics!). I was reasonably well trained, working in a well respected (and renumerated) field, when I was diagnosed with a disability that barred me from continuing in that job. As my disabiltiy will prevent me from working FT ever again (although in the future I do intend to go back to work PT), we would never be able to afford for me to retrain in something as I would never get a well-paid job with my physical limitations.

I haven't exlained that very eloquently, but it's not financially viable for me to retrain as DP would be unable to (on his income) be able to pay for me to retrain, as it would be a choice between course fees and rent/food for our family.

And I will add - DP has basically reached his 'earnings ceiling', as for what is essentially a reasonably unskilled job, he is earning more than quite a few retail managers in our town, and DP would not be capable of taking a management job.

He seems to have done very well given his disability. Were you drawn to each other in part because you are both disabled?

Some people seem able to start businesses from home without any training and make a fortune working very short hours. Other people work very hard in minimum wage jobs for life. The question is it luck and what causes that luck or not so random. Clearly some very low paid people on here can write. I've made and still make quite a bit of money over the years from writing so how come I can and others can't? It's just an interesting issue. The Radio 4 thing said the happy lucky optimists (which is what I am) think great I could do that and they do it. The pessimists 0 think I am useless, I hve bad luck, if I submit that writing or if I do XYZ without a doubt I shall fail so they do not even try or notice their opportunities.

Xenia - I tend to agree. I don't have the benefit of a degree but I have made my living out or problem solving and common sense. I tend to look on the jolly side of life. Radio 4 has also helped me through every stage of my life.

I don't really know what causes either an optimistic happy attitude or the luck that makes some people's lives easier than others but I feel very lucky to have that and things always seem to get better and better too which is lovely. It was an interesting short programme.

If someone's learning difficulty is a low IQ I suppose then they could not even sit at home and write a best selling novel because they wouldn't have the vocabulary or ideas but I do think even if I were virtually paralysed I could earn a living just by sitting here at the screen although of course I would have to be able to afford an internet connection.

I think common sense has made me happy - some would call it boring but a little planning and foresight has made all the difference to my life.

But surely Labour contributed to salaries staying stagnant, housing costs increasing and utility bills skyrocketings as people on lower incomes were getting extra in tax credits?

I don't think I'll ever be able to vote Tory again (particularly after what's happening with University fees) but I'll never ever vote labour.

(sorry, I'm going off on a tangent...)

Public sector workers were still getting their 3% salary increase (most of the time) and offered the option of contributing to a final salary pension, while many private sector workers are still on the same money they were 3 years ago, career progression or not.

There is still HUGE wastage in the public sector. I could understand the cuts if they made sense, but just slaying whole departments/units/organisations in the name of saving money is bullshit when there are offices full of useless individuals filling their time with crosswords

Actually, we first got together nearly 12 years ago, while I was still training, we had a very on-off relationship for quite a few years partly due to the MIL not letting go and accepting he was an adult, partly due to his problems. He found it very difficult when my disability was diagnosed, as I had always been the 'carer', and suddenly I needed help from him, that at the time, he wasn't mature enough to give me. We have been back together now for over a year and a half, and our relationship is much better, he has matured, stood up to his mother, and become a much better partner and father.

How does it follow that someone who is reasonably literate could write a novel? Just because someone is literate, it does not mean they have the creative streak necessary to write fiction. I know I certainly haven't. It's just not in me, in fact for someone who did well at school, English literature was my weakest subject. If everyone was capable of being a best-selling author, ot wouldn't be so unusal to be one, would it? Which would then devalue that profession, leading to lower pay...vicious circle?

If I could find a well-paid, PT job in one of those areas, that I could get free training in, (my previous qualifications were very industry-specific), we would more than likely be in a very different situation. While I am not overtly pessimistic (although my posts on the subject of the cuts may give the impression that I am), I have come to accept after 7 years, the limitations that my disability has placed upon me. I call that realism.

In an ideal world, I would be retrained for free, in something that I could work PT in to supplement our income. I personally do not have learning difficulties, and class myself as fairly literate and able to retrain. The only constraint on my retraining is the lack of household income and the cost of training. But the country doesn't have money for people like me to retrain, the DWP/government doesn't care (labour or tory) what job we do, or for how little money, or how bad the conditions, so long as we are working. And that includes a lot of people like me that have a disability that is significant enough to impair their ability to work in a full time job, but not classed as significant enough to get any help from disability benefits.

And I concur, Jareth, that Labour contributed to all these things, which is why I voted tory - I thought their pre-election pledges would fix these things. But they are going the wrong way about fixing them. Will a HB cap reduce rents? Not quickly enough for people to keep their private rented homes. And this goes for low income workers just as much as JSA claimants. Will there be any social housing for those homeless people to go to - no, because no more social housing is being built.

Tax Credits did not cause utility bills or housing costs to skyrocket - that was already happening. Tax credits were brought in to make up the shortfall between what you took home from minimum/low wage work, and the spiralling costs of living.

How exactly did Tax Credits in the UK cause Gas prices to rise? I had an inkling that is more to do with stand-offs between Russian suppliers, and Ukranian pipe-lines, and the policy of buying gas stocks well in advance?

Housing costs skyrocketed because BANKS started lending ever higher amounts of money on mortgages, people bought houses as an 'investment' rather than as a home - thus creating a shortage of available homes. Which is a little thing called 'supply and demand'. Which you can't avoid in a free economy. Rental prices increased as the house prices increased until you get to the point we are at now.

That all started (I would imagine, from the reading I have done in the past few weeks) when a certain (female) tory prime minister decided to give social housing tenants the 'right to buy', without replacing existing housing stocks as they were sold off. Had I known about this pre-election, I would have done some serious thinking about who got my vote.

Where were those low-paid people, that were previously in social housing, going to live if there was a major shortage of social housing stock? In private rented, of course! WWho profits from private renting? The LL, obviously - but also the government, indirectly.

Disclaimer - was only 15 yrs old, and in FC when Tony Blair was elected in 1997, wasn't very interested in politics back then! Hence not knowing very much about what previous Tory governments were like. Lately I have been doing some reading on political history.