If you were PM... where would you cut back?

harryhound

zygurat789 wrote: »

Education, all finance to students should be a loan, criteria to qualify, this should then be repaid after qualification with sizeable credits for those who do specific jobs i.e. Teaching, nursing (not the managers), junior hospital doctors and any other jobs that we need to staff so that we do not have to impoverish the health services of less well-off countries

Doesn't something like this happen already?

My daughter, to whom I gave a lump sum maturing at age 18, and told her it was now her life to manage, now works for the NHS.

When at Uni, she got a "bursary" - I cannot remember the details but I do remember a conversation about trying to get further money.
"It is so unfair, If I was 26 I would be a mature student. Can we somehow say that our relationship has irretrievably broken down, then I would be treated like a mature student?"

That was back in about 2001

harryhound

nick810 wrote: »

We need drastic steps now much longer can the people of the united kingdom sit back and watch while firms take on foreign workers cheaply and flash there wealth while the rest of us get bankrupted

What do you propose to do about the 1.5 billion Chinese people - they think they are doing really well if they can earn 100 GBP per month?

bumpoowee wrote: »

Recently found out NHS workers get 6 months full pay + 6 months half pay on maternity leave - meanwhile my private sector fianc!e got 6 weeks full pay and since then has been on £123 a week. This inequality is scandalous.

.

The government is able to print money to cover the current deficit between taxes and expenditure. The private sector can only pay out of the value added (after taxes) it produces. current deficit is about 10% of GDP I think. What ever happens most of us will be facing reduced living standards 1970's style for years to come.

glossyhair wrote: »

I would imagine that most of the people suggesting cutting benefits are not in the unfortunate position of having to live on them! :mad::mad::mad: To those people I say, not everyone who is claiming is a lazy scrounger; I am unemployed through no fault of my own and I have paid NI and taxes when I have been in work for the past 25 years . . . why should I not be entitled to some of it back when I am in need??

BTW, I am a single woman, with no kids and I have to live on the standard rate of £68 per week. You try it!! :eek::eek::eek: It is a constant fight to stay out of debt and endless juggling of funds in an attempt to make ends meet.

I don't have a posh car, plasma TV, Sky subscription TV, or an iPhone. I don't smoke, I don't drink alcohol very often and I don't spend my days watching Jeremy Kyle on TV. I am getting very,very tired of being judged unfairly.

I remember reading the book The Phantom Tollbooth when I was much younger and the one phrase that sticks in my mind is something along the lines of "it is very easy to jump to Conclusions but very difficult to get back again."

You need to read this thread and the blog it has created - brought to you from the "gloom & doom" (formerly "the nutters") section on this forum.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1695901
http://charliecroker.wordpress.com/2009/07/page/3/
http://charliecroker.wordpress.com/

ThinkingOfLinking

glossyhair wrote: »

I would imagine that most of the people suggesting cutting benefits are not in the unfortunate position of having to live on them! :mad::mad::mad: To those people I say, not everyone who is claiming is a lazy scrounger; I am unemployed through no fault of my own and I have paid NI and taxes when I have been in work for the past 25 years . . . why should I not be entitled to some of it back when I am in need??

BTW, I am a single woman, with no kids and I have to live on the standard rate of £68 per week. You try it!! :eek::eek::eek: It is a constant fight to stay out of debt and endless juggling of funds in an attempt to make ends meet.

I don't have a posh car, plasma TV, Sky subscription TV, or an iPhone. I don't smoke, I don't drink alcohol very often and I don't spend my days watching Jeremy Kyle on TV. I am getting very,very tired of being judged unfairly.

I remember reading the book The Phantom Tollbooth when I was much younger and the one phrase that sticks in my mind is something along the lines of "it is very easy to jump to Conclusions but very difficult to get back again."

You're lucky...My full rate of JSA is £50.95 a week but they're taking so much money off me I only receive £39.45 a week and am meant to somehow live on it. I have no TV, don't smoke and barely drink. I also don't eat junk food. BTW the reason they#re taking money off me is I accepted a job but didn't declare it for 6 months. This was because I didn't start for 6 months as it was for Wembley Stadium which wasnt even BUILT, let alone open at the time, furthermore I could prove I was still looking for work as the job was only an event day one. I digress but yes...it's hard enough as it is. Been also waiting for an appeal date (they granted me an appeal) to get the money BACK they have been reclaiming, since last OCTOBER. Citizens Advice are trying to push them to give me an actual date.

jmb2808

If you were PM... where would you cut back?

I believe that there is much scope for saving in the housing and benefits area!
The local councils un-necessarily give people council houses when in fact, these people are a couple who are both in full time employment and I believe that they in fact can afford a place of their own!
I am a young, single parent - living from one wage and have a large mortgage by myself, I struggle but not once have i have been offered any help from the government! I am on minimum benefits - so how come all these others are on top benefits, get to live in a house in the area of their choice!
Its a joke!

RabbitMad

The Government contribution to Child Trust funds (£250 or £500) costs us taxpayers £200,000,000 per year and its about to increase to £400,000,000 as the 1st children that got it turn 7 and get another £250 each.

NHS adverts on TV. Why does it need to advertises? Its doesn't need to encourage more people to use its service.

Tax credits. How much do they spend administering this convoluted system when they could just up everybodies tax code.

Politicians. We now have 29,000 paid politians in this country - more than our front line fighting force.

and finally the EU - Full withdrawal and save ourselves billions each year. Let our farmers grow what they want / no subsidies or quotas, fish caught in our waters come to the uk by uk registered and tax paying boats.

worried_jim

Benefits-
JSA-scrap the lot after six months. If a non English speaking eastern European can come to the UK and within 24 hours have a home ,bank account and a job what is your excuse? Too cushy flogging the Big Issue in the sunshine whilst drinking a cappuccino ?

jamespir

billbennett wrote: »

It's obscene, the number of people on benefits who can't be bothered to find work because they wouldn't be better off, who are spending their benefits .

i know theres a few who do but i dont think its a case of cant be btohered to find work ive been redudndat since may ( im not claiming any benifits at all my partners gets dla and i/s as she has severe derpression and other problems too) have checked job centres every day
and 98 % of the jobs advertised are for agency who you ring up and they say yeah well stick you on a list and you here nothing back from because they have 1 job and 1000 of people going to it.


as for being better off im not sure i would much rather be earining and getiing 8-900 pounds a mounth than the measly 300 quid we have to survie on now

BigMikeyG

cut benefits, use money to raise immigration levels so companies can't use money on cheap imported staff, make sure there are jobs for british citizens and therefore a fall in benefit usage because they are in jobs, basically give the people who steal money on benefits (obviously people need it in some cases, and that is what it should be used for, not to pay some lard-!!! to watch tv all day (Jeremy Kyle!)) A kick in the !!!. If they refuse then make them homeless and see how quickly they sort themselves out.

Andy_Davies

Where's the vote for things like this - http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/14060/response/37012/attach/html/3/Response%20Ltr.FOI3122.doc.html

This is hugely over-priced...

mcgazz

Blimey, it's all gone a bit Daily Mail in here. We've had "plasma TVs in council houses", "scroungers", "non-jobs in councils", "gold-plated civil service pensions" and "having kids to get benefits". I just need a reference to "the f3ckless" and I'll have a full house.

Sorry for the ranty nature of what follows...

> gold-plated copper-bottom pension schemes

I work in the Civil Service. Like an awful lot of government employees, I don't earn very much. The pension is one of the few perks we get that's supposed to make up for that. However, if it's still there when I retire, mine will actually be worth very little.

I find it depressing that people would like to see others have their entitlements removed, rather than demand the same things for themselves. I'm in my 30s, educated up to postgraduate level, do an intellectually demanding job in the science/academic sector and earn less than £20K a year. I'm happy enough with my lot, but I'm sick of hearing from people who earn 2 or 3 times what I do telling me what a charmed life I lead. Anyone who wants my apparently "gold-plated" *and* "copper bottomed" pension can contact me and we'll arrange to swap jobs ;-)

It's regularly claimed that it's socialists who want to "create equality by bringing everyone down to the lowest level", but I find that it's right-wing/conservative people who're guilty of that. I'm sick of hearing from people who work in the private sector moaning that, as they haven't had a pay rise for 3 years, no one else should get one either. Rather than moan about public sector unions - why not form your own unions and get a better deal for yourself?


> The vast majority of benefits should be means-tested

The vast majority of benefits *are* means-tested, or have very strict qualifying criteria (and are often conditional on NI contributions). Child Benefit isn't, and it could easily be scrapped and replaced by something more targeted.


> I'd reduce benefits, and turn them from cash into vouchers.

Ignoring the heartless inhumanity of treating people who've, through no fault of their own, lost their jobs like prisoners, administrating a voucher scheme would cost more, not less.


> subsidised social housing

Social housing (of which there is less and less these days, as the Labour Government has carried on the Tories' work privatising it and shifting it to voluntary sector trusts) is *not* subisdised. Rents are charged pretty much at market rates and council housing departments have to balance their books. Rent increases by more than inflation every year.


> drive their MPVs

This is real cloud cuckoo land stuff. Find me a single unemployed person who drives an MPV.


> A very large percentage of crime is committed by a very small percentage of individuals. Build more prisons, give them realistic jail terms (at least 10 yrs for violence, bring back the death penalty, no community service, no probation. Pay for the prisons by sacking the parole board and the excessive number of police are no longer required. The courts will be empty so savings on the CPS and overaged overpaid sleepyheads in the wigs.

What you've described is quite similar to North Korea. You'd like it there.


> I would look at all the quangos

The issue with quangos is that they're unaccountable, not that they're a waste of money. Most (I won't go so far as to say all) quangos do necessary work, which would have to be done elsewhere if they were scrapped, so it wouldn't really save any money. Talking about scrapping quangos is a rhetorical trick politicians use now and again to impress the public, as we're conditioned by the media to have negative associations with the word 'quango'. The most recent person to do this was David Cameron - the Tories announcing around the same time that they actually wanted to create at least one new quango.


> Recently found out NHS workers get 6 months full pay + 6 months half pay on maternity leave

And rather than think "everyone should get that", you thought "I want their rights reduced"? If everyone thought like that, we'd still be working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for starvation wages with no holidays and no employment rights.


> The local councils un-necessarily give people council houses when in fact, these people are a couple who are both in full time employment and I believe that they in fact can afford a place of their own!

The way social housing allocation works now is that people register with the council, are allocated a priority band and then bid on properties as they become available. The bidder with the highest priority gets it (if there's more than one in the same priority band, it goes to the one who's been waiting the longest). The only way a couple, both working, would get a council house is if no one who was a higher priority bid for it. It can happen. Contrary to what you might read in the papers, no one is handed anything automatically.


> Too cushy flogging the Big Issue in the sunshine whilst drinking a cappuccino

Have I been accidentally forwarded to the Daily Mail website?


What would I do? I don't believe in the 'government as grocer' metaphor beloved of Thatcher and now Cameron - it's the Government's job to spend counter-cyclically to reinflate the economy and then claw back the cash when everyone's better off.

Also, I'd make changes on the revenue side as well. I'd tax unearned income (savings interest, share dividends, capital gains and inheritances) at the same rate (at least) as earned income. I'd increase the council tax on second homes. I'd legalise cannabis and tax it at the same rate as tobacco.

But, if I was going to make savings, I do the following.

DEFENCE
Cancel the replacement for Trident. Scrap the fourth, unnecessary, Trident sub and one of the proposed aircraft carriers. Switch to F-35 aircraft instead of the Eurofighter, and have fewer of them. Instigate much stricter auditing of the MOD (the amount of money they've wasted over the years is staggering).

EDUCATION
Stop wasting money on PFI contracts, which have been proven to lead to poorer services at an increased cost. Scrap SATs and other pointless, overly bureaucratic nonsense like school league tables and Contactpoint.

INDUSTRY, AGRICULTURE, EMPLOYMENT & TRAINING
Stop subsidising banks!
Charge larger businesses and especially employment agencies to place adverts in Jobcentres (a Jobcentre is, after all, a subsidised recruitment service for the private sector, and many agencies 'earn' their money by putting adverts in the Jobcentre knowing full well that the DWP aren't allowed to tell the employer that's what they're doing).

HEALTH
End the failed neoliberal experiment that is the NHS 'internal market'. Reduce the amount paid to GPs. Cut back on the money black hole that is the NHS IT programme. Use the NHS' purchasing power more aggressively to buy drugs more cheaply and reduce the amount of taxpayers' money that goes to big drug companies. Reduce the amount spent on health promotion - disseminating information is fine, but telling people how to live their lives isn't.

PUBLIC ORDER/SAFETY
Scrap ID cards and the National Identity Database - along with numerous other 'Big Brother' databases the Government has.

SOCIAL PROTECTION
Scrap child benefit and the tax credits system, and increase the personal allowance instead. Any specific subsidies to low-income families, etc, could be done by HMRC through different tax codes.

TRANSPORT
No new motorway schemes - repairs and maintenance only.

I'd also link MPs pay rises to the rest of the civil service (if they want the likes of me to get 1.5%, they can make do with the same) and reduce the number of Westminster MPs (to around 400) and councillors (surely my metropolitan borough doesn't need 3 councillors for every ward?). Scrap the TV licencing system and collect the money via income tax instead.