surely it is better to limit child benefit to 2 kids per family

chopperharris

Percy1983 wrote: »

Good definition.

The problem like with all schemes, the innocent suffer because of the scrongers abusing the system.

FATBALLZ

How does..

marklv wrote: »

It's a question of personal responsibility whether you have kids or not.

..tie in with...

marklv wrote: »

I think they should make it means tested.

..aka those who can't afford to support kids get funded by the rest of us and those that can have to pay for themselves?

MissMoneypenny

ultrawomble wrote: »

LOL. If only that was true.

It's strange how people these days don't believe that parents' use to work to finance their own children. Yes,we really did work to pay for our own children. Oh the shock and horror of it all. Fancy having children and having to work to pay for them yourselves.

It hasn't taken Brown and Blair long to create what someone on this board aptly named, "the entitled to" class.

silvercar

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

It's strange how people these days don't believe that parents' use to work to finance their own children. Yes,we really did work to pay for our own children. Oh the shock and horror of it all. Fancy having children and having to work to pay for them yourselves.

It hasn't taken Brown and Blair long to create what someone on this board aptly named, "the entitled to" class.

£20 per child per week is not anything like the amount it costs to support a child. You can't seriously think that those who only receive child benefit in support are not financing their own children.

DervProf

silvercar wrote: »

£20 per child per week is not anything like the amount it costs to support a child. You can't seriously think that those who only receive child benefit in support are not financing their own children.

All I can say is that I don`t have children and as a single male I get no child benefits. I also don`t get any working family tax credits (I think that`s what a friend of mine gets). I also know that should I lose my job I would find it far easier to find myself starving, out on the streets than someone looking after a child. (Fair enough, I suppose. People who reproduce should be "rewarded").

There is, however, a decent counter-argument to all of this.

You can drive a Prius. You can fit energy saving bulbs. You can recycle all your paper and tin cans. The greenest thing you can do is not reproduce. My carbon footprint is as small as I can make it. If I do the deed, I`ll almost double it (assuming my offspring doesn`t knit yoghurt, or invent a clean replacement for fossil fuel based energy production).

Child benefit is bad for the environment.

OK ?

Kohoutek

If child benefit is some kind of incentive for people that can't support their children to have more, then maybe it should be limited.

But it isn't benefits themselves that are the biggest cost to the government for large families who contribute little in corresponding taxes – it's the cost of sending them to school until at least the age of 16, providing medical care and in some cases, social services and the court service/prison. So it really boils down to whether parents raise their children to be a productive member of society...

gravitytolls

loveGSDs wrote: »

i wouldnt label anyone who has worked and been made redundant etc - a scrounger. a scrounger to me is someone who has never worked, is happy to never have worked and has no intention of ever working.

Quite, and though there are undoubtedly those, many in fact, who fit your description, they do not make the majority! Life on benefits is tough, it's crap, it's humiliating and knowing that others believed you to be a scrounger was depressing.

The media like to portray scroungers as being well off, of profiting from the tax payer and being able to live like kings, with their leather sofas and plasma TV's. Well maybe they do, those that have a second income that is, because benefits alone don't allow for such luxuries.

Yes let's get the workshy off their !!!!!!, but before we tackle them, let's be sure that those in need of work and who want to work are assisted properly first, then let's be sure that fiddling scroungers are made an example of to deter others, and then the workshy can quake in their boots, as it's their turn.

Shakethedisease

It's strange how people these days don't believe that parents' use to work to finance their own children. Yes,we really did work to pay for our own children. Oh the shock and horror of it all. Fancy having children and having to work to pay for them yourselves

In your 'day' only one wage earner was need to 'finance the children' and the house.. nowadays, it takes 2 just to cover the mortgage/rent AND the childcare.

Get real and don't be so bleeding smug ! Times change, we don't live in the 70's anymore...

gravitytolls

Shakethedisease wrote: »

In your 'day' only one wage earner was need to 'finance the children' and the house.. nowadays, it takes 2 just to cover the mortgage/rent AND the childcare.

Get real and don't be so bleeding smug ! Times change, we don't live in the 70's anymore...

Mmmm, or work to pay someone else to raise your children, while you're trying to keep a roof over their heads, food in their bellies etc.

elaina79

Everybody pays tax. When you pay your bills or buy things from the shop or if you have a car etc. Yes I claim benefits but do I think that I'm spending your money. Well no I don't. It all gets lumped into one big pot reguardless of where it came from.