What Goverment spending would you cut? poll discussion

charliewiggs

666jon wrote: »

All of these have vast scope for savings but they are all protecting their own backs and generous pensions at our expense.
The EU is not on the list and must be the most wasteful body ever and we have no control over it.
The Euro fiasco is going to cost us dear whatever they say.

The EU should be on the list if only to see how many people want out of it, the money we pay in would probably wipe out our national debt

chocolatemaniac

amy21_84 wrote: »

Benefits, without a doubt.

I agree with benefits to some extent, most of us experience times in our life when we need help, but i am fed up with paying for people to sit on their backside all day complaining they can't get a job (when in fact they just cannot be bothered).

The only people who should be entitled to benefits are severely disabled/ ill people and their carers, OAPs and people who have been made redundant (for max a year, but there should be higher payments for people with mortgages). If these were the only people the government could then give back the savings to people who work by taxing us slightly less, then everyone would have more money to spend on what they need. Everyone else who claim they just can’t get a job should have to do community work in order to get there benefits, otherwise they don’t get them.

Single parents who are looking after young children and don’t wish to work should have someone paying their share of that child anyway (like the absent mother/ father), which should be far stricter (DNA testing should be mandatory for people who claim it isn’t there’s – but if it comes back as wrong ei, mother doesn’t know who the father is and just accuses a list of potential men, then that person should pay a fine to the person they accuse!). If they need their benefits topping up to feed their child then they should only get vouchers, and nothing else.

I live in a flat which I brought 2 years ago, and the flat above me is council. I have had 3 couples living up there since I moved in the first was a mother and child, she openly told me she was claiming benefits for being a single parent when dad came and stayed round practically every night (also claiming benefits and had a council flat!). When she couldn’t get the council to give her a house (she claimed the 1 bed flat was too small for her and her 2 year old – obviously couldn’t just be honest and say it was too small for her, her partner and child as they would loose vital benefits) she then became pregnant again (yes with the same bloke) and then she got moved to a house. Second couple actually worked, but only stayed there for 5 months. Third couple (there now), both don’t work, he has two kids already by another women and now his current g/f he lives with is pregnant, so yet another mouth to feed on benefits! Both couples which were on benefits always had the latest technology, mobiles, TV’s, IPods, play stations – more than I have!!!! To top it all off, they ring up kingfisher (the leaseholder) every 5 mins with a problem and guess who has to pay half the bill if its communal….me!!!!!! Last year I had to pay £650, this year it was £450, I have not once rang them with a problem. The only bills I should have to pay is ground rent, lighting and building insurance, which on their own would only cost me a combined £80. It a bloody joke!!

Ok, rant over, but you get my point. We live in a society where you work hard and do everything yourself you get nothing (oh no sorry, I am entitled to 25% off council tax as I live on my own, even though it’s based on 2 adults sharing so shouldn’t that mean I should get 50% discount!!??) but if you do nothing, don’t work, s**t on society you get everything for free. Think I made the wrong choice somewhere!!!!

I agree, there are too many people claiming benefits and too many doing so under false pretences.
I also think that benefits should be set at the current minimum wage. If someone has decided that the min wage is what a person can live on, then any benefits should not exceed that. The only exceptions should be disability preventing work ( and I mean genuineley unable to work) :beer:

chocolatemaniac

spendalot_sanj wrote: »

NHS staff numbers have grown disproportionately against population, unpopular but required. If possible reduce staffing numbers to year 2000 figures. And resolve issue with pensions, public sector pensions are not properly funded.

I presume you mean that administrative and managerial staff numbers should be reduced??
The numbers of nurses and doctors has not increased that much over the last 10 years, in fact most clinical areas have probably seen a decrease in skilled/trained nurses and an increase in untrained care workers. However the amount of work required has increased substantially. In my area of work my patient numbers have gone from 150-170 per month in 2001 to 650-700 per month this year, we have the same number of staff seeing those people (2).
As for pensions, I am actually fed up with people saying public sector worker dont contribute to their pensions, WE DO!! It's council workers, civil servants and the armed forces who do not.

SoNoble

We should be offered the choice of cutting expenditure on EU Membership. I'm not surprised that we are not offered this - Cameron & Clegg are not going to consider this so why should MSE?

Why EU Membership? It makes the molehill of Westminster corruption pale by comparison. The EU still don't allow their books to be properly audited - dissenters are dismissed as small Englanders - some maybe but many understand the bigger issues of an unfettered, centralised power block with a developing domination agenda.

Again, nobody under 53 has ever been allowed a say on a single EU question and several older people now think that they were hoodwinked when they did get a say and would like a chance to give a verdict after 35 years.

barryd999

keith26 wrote: »

Cut benefits for a start, then add a surcharge on all those who have voted labour over the years as they are the ones who got us into this mess yet again. Never been in debt, never voted labour, never had anything off the government I dont see why its now MY problem at all.

Well said. I dont see however why 22% of you have voted to cut defence. Even if you think our troops should not be in Afganistan they are still under resourced and sometimes ill equiped and deserve the best. They are certainly underpaid. Shame on you!

Its time to pay the piper Im afraid. It annoys me that the labour government nurtured this debt culture and people just went along with it buying stuff they cant afford and dont need. I mean who needs a 60" plasma TV in a grotty council house? Well Ha HA! Good! Its about time everyone was taught a lesson in real life. I have worked hard all my life, have run my own business for the past 10 years. I have never been in debt and never bought anything unless I had the cash to pay for it. when I got married I saved up and lived on just £30 per week until the wedding and had one crappy settee and a portable tele. Now I own my own lovely home with no mortgage and money in the bank. Business is terrible but I toiled and saved over the years and put money aside for a rainy day.

It makes me sick that our so called leaders have allowed this to happen and that so many subscribed to the debt culture. Well tough. Your all going to have to pay now. Good luck.

The can slash all of them apart from Defence by half for all I care. If your in the public sector, I would start thinking about getting a real job if I were you.

pine_lady

If I were the government I would start by looking at the waste in paying final salary pensions to MP's and other Parlimentary personnel. This would amount to quite a substantial pot of money and give the govenment a few brownie points in showing that they are willing to give up a few freebies. We in the private sector had our pensions raped by the previous government and final salary pensions are almost unheard of. The money needed to fund the MP's final sarary pensions is astronomicial and the tax payer has to pay this 'hidden' expense. Come on David, show us what a good leader you can be.

chocolatemaniac

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

That wasn't the plan when the NHS was formed. It was thought that improvements in health would cause a natural cap on the expenditure.

However the NHS is paying out for things it shouldn't be. In 2005/6 there were over a quarter of a million admissions to NHS hospitals in England for
selected alcohol-related diagnoses (mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol, alcoholic liver disease and toxic effects of alcohol). Hospital admissions for these diagnoses have virtually doubled since 1997. Overall probably around 1 in 16 of all hospital admissions are for alcohol-related causes.
Alcohol-related diseases account for 1 in 8 NHS bed days (around 2 million) and 1 in 8 NHS day cases (around 40,000).
The Strategy Unit calculated the cost to the NHS in England and Wales of treating alcohol-related conditions to be up to £1.7 billion per annum.

So if we could stop using hospitals as drying-out units for the Friday night befuddled we could make a hefty slice of savings.

It's tempting to cut overseas aid, but abolishing it entirely would only save £12bn, less than a 10% cut in NHS.

Social Protection - a stupidly high spend but hard to cut across the board without causing hardship. And if there are economies elsewhere in public spending (much of which is salaries) then unemployment is likely to rise.

Figures are probably for England/Wales only - Scotland has a higher per capita spend under Barnett formula and so could come in for some sensible economies.

It's very easy to judge people, I do, all the time. However you cannot start charging for alcohol related incidents, yes some people go out get !!!!ed and end up in ED abusing everyone but some people may have deep psychological problems stemming from incidents they did not have any control over, and drink to help with that. Do we then start charging extra if you are really overweight and have a heart attack?? what about smokers who get lung cancer?? It's never ending.

deedee71

barryd999 wrote: »

Well said. I dont see however why 22% of you have voted to cut defence. Even if you think our troops should not be in Afganistan they are still under resourced and sometimes ill equiped and deserve the best. They are certainly underpaid. Shame on you!

I voted for defence, but wasn't thinking of troops funding, more along the lines of Trident.

voiceofreason

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.

You would say that.

Your job depends on it.

Isn't it true that more money's lost by the DWP through incompetence, mismanagement and poor strategic decision-making than ever is lost through benefit fraud?

wiganshale

I am not sure that we ought to have troops in Afghanistan but, given that we do, I feel that we need to provide them with whatever equipment they need to work effectively, with a minimum of harm.
However, there is room for defence cuts.
I have read that the defence budget includes donations to the armed forces of foreign Governments (I think one donation was to Bolivia).
I have read that we have an extremely high ratio of Generals to lower ranks.
Lastly, I still haven't read of any explanation why we need trident. It's expensive, we've never used it and I can't envisage where we ever will. It's not a deterrent, as the larger powers could obliterate us before we fired it off and nutters like the rulers of Iran and N.Korea are hardly likely to worry about retaliation, if they decided to attack us, instead of their avowed enemies.
Oversea's aid needs to be replaced by fair trading (as opposed to "fair trade" shopping, which seems a lot like the "organic" scam)
Hospitals need to get rid of Trust status and the pre-privatisation model. If Hospitals are ever privatised, the admin staff will evaporate overnight, so why not do it now?
I agree about getting out of Europe. Let's have what we allegedly voted for, a free trade zone, and leave it at that.