What Goverment spending would you cut? poll discussion

redux

Marisco wrote: »

I voted for overseas aid, not because I don't think they need a hand, but because I don't agree with giving actual money. Instead of sending money which ends up with corrupt officials or used to buy arms, why not build things for them, i.e housing, schools, irrigation systems, desalination plants etc? Train the people out there to help themselves.

How do you know such things are not amongst those already happening?

But capital projects still cost money.
_

As I said earlier, MSE's given figure of £12 billion for overseas aid is actually fake. Can anyone at MSE comment on why?

The true figures are £5.5 billion for last year and a projected £7 billion or so for this year

About £3 billion, thus half the total, is given to organisations such as the United Nations, Red Cross, and medical bodies attempting to stamp out diseases such as malaria. Is that such a bad idea? None of them are involved in arms supply.

iudtuvm

Marisco wrote: »

....why not build things for them, i.e housing, schools, irrigation systems, desalination plants etc? Train the people out there to help themselves. This would also help the unemployed situation in this country, by using unemployed tradesmen to do the work.

Human beings are capable of doing the things they need for themselves. Don't create a need where there isn't one and dont fall into the trap of transferring your expectations of what life should be about to others.

People in areas we tend to think of as deprived have managed to survive for generation after generation. (They are also almost always happier people in general, but that's another story). If they really were helpless, would they still be around?

The UK is in financial dire straits and yet govts will still seek to ring-fence aid. Do you honestly think they are doing so because they are genuinely altruistic? Intergovernmental 'Aid' is infinitely more sinister than you can even begin to imagine.

shianna_2

How right yopu are Butterfly i hope the Govt take some notice though i doubt it. We need to try Canadas approach to this problem.

shianna_2

Vital to 'poorer' people in Gt Britain. <....looks around and whos fault is it they smoke drink and do drugs all day ??? And get paid for it? If you dont work you should not get a free ride there is always work of somekind look at Canada if you dont work there either in community or real jobs you dont get handouts simple. But even they can manage to have loads of so called fun, smoking drinking etc etc etc Stop the welfare state paying for a 'CASH CROP FERRULE KIDS' To RUN AMOK and they don't give a monkies who they hurt or how much they take...

puckstopper

Well Olic, i would rather you did not assume things about me when you do not no me. Actually i was against the invasion of Iraq because i belive we were missled by our government. We should have waited until the UN made the desicion. And i can assure you no one has brainwashed me.
As for Aggrieved you need to grow up and smell the roses, its people like you that are helping to drag this country down, i do not live in the past but look to the future. We should all aspire to get this country back on its feet and instill some national pride and patriotism back in to it.

elfen

Hmm....ok...where would I cut..

Civil service - cut down the number of mangerial and administrative staff. Bring back matrons and give a bit more to those training to be nurses/doctors and get a sense of pride going there. Give teachers/nurses/doctors/hospital medical staff a bit more money to live on. Cut down the amount consultants get and give it to the front-line staff.

Teens - if you don't want to go to school or train for 16-18, fair enough, you can go do national service instead. This is boys AND girls, no reason girls should get it easier. If you get pregnant under 18, you don't get a flat - you live at home until the age of 18 and then you can apply for housing, but you won't instantly be top of the list.

Immigration - set up a Green Card system, if we need your skills, you can come in but be prepared to pass tests in English so you have decent skills too. If you're coming over here for money, you get 3 months to find a job and then kicked back out of the country with a copy of your picture/passport stored on record so you can't get back in.

MPs - cut in pay (to at most £35k) Only expenses are travel (basic bog-standard not first class, anything extra is out of your own pocket not ours) and for things like stationary, and maybe half the cost of a bog-standard lappy, not a high-end one unless it can be proven you need it.

Benefits - child benefit is means-tested, and after 3 kids there is a sharp decline in the amount payable. CTC and WFTC remain, but the top-end is changed so people who stash away money in self-employed businesses to get it are caught out. People who get maintainence above a certain level (has to be proved) get their IS cut on a sliding scale, if you don't give evidence in, you get less, if you've asked for less maintainence, that's your damn fault as govt won't give you any more money.

Crime - get rid of all the luxuries in prisons and make them work for their money - I'm sure there's lots of things prisoners can make (like they do in the US) and they may get a pittance, but it's their pittance. Blanket ban on all drugs and alcohol being smuggled in - if it's in, you get moved to higher security or have ALL privileges removed for at least 3 months up to a year for EACH case of smuggling.

Defense - get out of Afghanistan ASAP - it isn't our war. Spend more on kit and training for troops, ensure that everyone has a skill to fall back on in case they get discharged for medical reasons. Give more to the rehabilitation centres for all military personnel.

clarevoyant

I work an eighteen hour day, every day. No holidays, no time off, nothing and there are people here who have not been clear. I am entitled to a life with a reasonable standard of living. By looking after more than one disabled person in my family, I save the government a great deal more than I am paid in benefits each week. So, before you talk blindly about cutting benefits, think first, please. We're not all scroungers, some of us do not have choices that others do. I am aware that some have stated that not all people on benefits are scroungers, but others have not.
Oh, and benefits have been taxed since Thatcher came in, a long time ago.

voiceofreason

shianna wrote: »

Vital to 'poorer' people in Gt Britain. <....looks around and whos fault is it they smoke drink and do drugs all day ??? And get paid for it? If you dont work you should not get a free ride there is always work of somekind look at Canada if you dont work there either in community or real jobs you dont get handouts simple. But even they can manage to have loads of so called fun, smoking drinking etc etc etc Stop the welfare state paying for a 'CASH CROP FERRULE KIDS' To RUN AMOK and they don't give a monkies who they hurt or how much they take...

Can't think of a better example of what I was saying earlier :T

pinkpanther22

My husband is one of the consultants to a local authority. Now before everyone goes mad about the value of consultants.... He proposed efficency savings for the non-cricial transport services of three authorities, which would have saved the authorities in question about £170K per year, some 12 times the value of his fees for a fairly "blooming obvious" saving (his words). The authorities refused to implement them as they said that the various staff in the departments would apparently be offended at having to share services.

Draw your own conclusions!!

NorthWalesGraham

photodudeuk wrote: »

NorthWalesGraham wrote: »

I am a benefit fraud investigator for the past 12 years and from my experience I can state that fraud within the benefit system is rampant . . .

What every civil servant, or indeed any employee now needs to remember, is that there are, and increasingly will be, thousands of people that would be willing to do their jobs for less money. Move over, chummy.

I'm at a loss to understand the point of this comment.