What will it take for the Government to enact welfare reform?

[Schlossadler]

What has to break, before the Government is finally willing to enact welfare reform?

Tax land. The fuckers can't offshore that.

@ExpectMoreI don’t think it’s me not thinking clearly 😆

So in simple terms, if our debt repayments are ballooning (more going out) and the treasury aren't taking more in tax receipts (money coming in), cuts will have to be made somewhere?

You've mistaken a Georgist who has read Marx for a Communist. I'm definitely the former.

Which ‘fuckers’?

Don't you mean fuck the freeloaders, they contribute little.

I say again, around a third of universal credit claimants are in any kind of work. The government, funnily enough, doesn’t collect data of how many hours they actually work, so how many of them are working full time? Not all, not most, I’d bet. So this narrative that UC is mainly paid to full time workers who are just being shafted by greedy, rich employers is not supported by the governments own statistics. More than 50% of UC claimants are in the “no working requirements” category.
If employers are not paying enough that absolutely needs to be called out but the claim that most UC is paid to support those employers is simply not true.

PIP is already only for people with severe disabilities. My 20 year old has autism and he doesn't get it. PIP requires a lot of evidence, they don't just hand it out to everyone who applies. PIP and DLA goes on the person's extra expenses for being disabled, it doesn't go on their parents coke habit or for anything for the parents. My 18 year old gets the highest rate of PIP and it all goes on things to make his life a bit easier. He would much rather not have his disability. He would much rather get no money from PIP if it meant CAMHS would actually help him instead of telling me they couldn't help him because he was too disabled.

I don't know anyone who would rather be on benefits than working. I don't know anyone who would rather have a low paid job plus benefits than have a job which pays a decent salary.

When people are expecting a baby, nobody says they hope the baby is severely disabled so they can skip the queue at Disneyland. Nobody would rather look after an incontinent 12 year old all day than have a well paid job. Nobody wants to listen to other parents talk about their child going to university while wondering if theirs will live to become an adult. I've said this so many times on mumsnet that PIP/DLA is for people who desperately need it. There are so many adults and children who are disabled but not disabled enough to get any help.

Steady on. You’re speaking too much sense. Mrs entitlement @selffellatingouroborosofhateover here clearly feels she’s more deserving of others money than they are, ironically because in her eyes they’ve done nothing to deserve it (when neither has she!).

This is all true. There is no denying the fact that not having enough money does not stop people having children. And the negatives outcomes for those children associated with that. That is not hypothetical or ideological, that is a fact.
So, @Theseagullwhisperer what is your suggestion or solution?

That will become orders of magnitude more complicated when a voucher has to be redeemed against one class of goods, with multiple voucher types and multiple goods classes per transaction.

Tesco may be able to largely automate that away with database columns, but smaller shops will not be able to cope with that administrative overhead. Result: State money being funneled into big corporations, benefits claimants unable to shop in their local neighbourhood, and loss of income for smaller shops, especially those in deprived areas. "Why have the district High Streets emptied?" "Why has the council lost hundreds of thousands in business rates from independant retailers closing?"

The added complication of categorising goods will also hit benefits claimants themselves. It's hard enough to keep one running total of your trolley without having to remember which of several "pots" each item is paid from and keep totals for each pot. Long-term benefits claimants are less likely to be literate and numerate and more likely to have a learning disability. The goods categorisation inherent in vouchers could well push basic grocery shopping from "something a disabled person can do themselves" to "something a carer must do for them", costing the State more money in carer fees.

What you propose is of a much larger scope than wartime rationing ever was. Rationing didn't even cover all foodstuffs, never mind things like soap. It simply isn't comparable to wartime rationing.

And what if, due to the steep rise in cost of living, that’s not possible?

Silly me, I forgot! I will have nothing in return for trading my labour and and be happy.

Would you like to explain exactly what the current Duke of Westminster did to earn the land he holds? Tip: nothing, he inherited it.

Land ownership is theft from the planet that is the common heritage of all humanity. Every piece of land that is "owned" was originally taken from the commons at the point of a sword.

Land tax, as rent paid to everyone for the exclusive use of a piece of land, is the only fair tax. Even Milton Friedman agrees.

When I've already stated that I'm a Georgist, claiming that I'm a communist is both a lie and a personal attack.

The Useless Eaters? Hmmmmm

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00224669020360030601

Agree it would be bloody awful.

It would open up a whole new world to organised crime.

Would have administrative costs - have we seen any calculations on how much a new system like this would cost to get up and running...

Potential stigma associated with any such scheme - we already know many people don't claim benefits they are entitled to, because of such reasons.

I would like to see the evidence that cash is misused.. posters often claim this but I have yet to see any convincing evidence that this is true. While I am sure there is some misuse of benefits. Is the level of misuse is large enough to justify restricting everyone else's choices - I don't agree it is.

I think your ideas are ludicrous and dated. Dated to the 19th Century I believe.

The incredibly rich people and companies who send their money to the Caymans to avoid income tax would be the "fuckers" in question.

When ordinary people are paying income tax, small businesses are paying business rates, but mega-corporations are dodging tax, there's something wrong.

Cutting benefits won't stimulate growth, it will cost the State more in the long run, and it's punching down on the people who are already at the bottom of the social heap.

Land tax allows people to keep what they earn. It encourages efficient use of land, which is a finite commodity. It's "land tax", not "building tax" or "profit tax" or "turnover tax". Even Milton Friedman says it's the least-worst form of tax.

And supported by Milton Friedman, so perhps not so dated.

How many people on this thread have actually bothered to read Marx, George, and Friedman? Having done so myself would surely indicate that I've given State-level economics some thought.

The point of sale system already knows what has been sold when the barcode is scanned. That is how shops can update stock levels, apply vouchers and flag items for age n. The same principle could be used for vouchers. The system could recognise that a scanned item belongs to an eligible category, check the customer's remaining entitlement and deduct it automatically. The customer wouldn't necessarily have to work out which “pot” it came from. The tricky part would be creating a coding system that is consistent across both large and small retailers.

The beauty of it is that nobody can even tell that you are using vouchers.

The tricky part would be creating a coding system that is consistent across both large and small retailers.

And how much would that cost the tax payer to develop such a system?

You are completely ignoring:

• Smaller shops just don't have that kind of POS system, full stop.
• The benefits claimant whilst walking around the shop has to keep track of the value of the trolley contents. The scene in Brassed Off where Sandra gets to the till and doesn't have enough money for everything and is panicking trying to figure out what her family can do without that week was based in reality. Keeping track of multiple totals, one for each voucher, will be impossible. The claimant will get to the till and that they don't have enough money on one of their vouchers for that week's shopping and has to choose an item to return. Frustratingly, they may have unused money on another voucher but cannot use it to buy the item, because the item is the wrong type.

Far from making sensible budgeting easier for claimants, it will make it harder.

Efficient use of land.

What exactly is this efficiency?

Land tax allows people to keep what they earn.

Do you know any other good jokes? A recurring land tax means that even after you've bought your home and paid off the mortgage, you still have a housing cost you don't control. If the paper value of the land rises while your income doesn't, even thought you haven't seen a penny, your financial liability rises with it. That's hardly the definition of housing security or keeping more of what you earn.

Any other pearls of wisdom in this race to the bottom in the spite and envy steeplechase?

I don’t have a simple, sound bite answer to what it is an incredibly complex problem. But my main answer would be to listen to the experts on child poverty and to frame the government’s response accordingly - almost certainly including better access to family planning and contraception, tackling low wages and job insecurity, more social housing, better access to affordable childcare etc etc. If you are genuinely interested here are some good places to start:
https://www.jrf.org.uk/social-security/a-protected-minimum-floor-in-universal-credit-to-cut-deep-child-poverty
https://bmjpaedsopen.bmj.com/content/10/1/e004370
https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/ending-poverty