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

Spartacus_Mills

dave4545454 wrote: »

they should scrap child benefit all together or at worse make it means tested

Means test it and it becomes a poverty trap. I dislike means testing as a principle.

Child Benefit should be abolished. People want to have kids, fine. They have them, they pay for them.

Spartacus_Mills

ninky wrote: »

the cost to the taxpayer for children is far greater than child benefit. free schooling and healthcare (including maternity care) cost more than child benefit.

Schooling is an up front cost that society reaps the benefit of in later years.

Pete111

ninky wrote: »

the cost to the taxpayer for children is far greater than child benefit. free schooling and healthcare (including maternity care) cost more than child benefit.

i'd rather have children provided for than punish parents for having children they can't support.

however, i think there is something to be said for shifting the mindset that encourages procreation. being childfree should be seen as a valid, if not admirable, position. also the benefits of being childfree both on future finances and lifestyle could be better encouraged. i don't think the condems are helping with all the talk about giving married couples tax breaks and putting the family at the centre of things (by which they clearly mean the nuclear family of mum, dad and kids).

I don't see why this is an issue at all personally - many countries do this. I am happy for the tax breaks to apply to same sex couples/parents also via civil partnerships

For me the family being at the 'centre of things' is something we have moved rather too far away from in the UK and I cautiously applaud their stance.

Generali

chopperharris wrote: »

The true reason for child allowance is to increase the amount of people born , kept fed and healthy , or the population dwindles and theres no one left to pay bloody taxes in a a generation , by that time the rich have !!!!ed off abroad to protect their wealth or changed the taxes in their favour and made out its what the voter wanted.

Not true.

The history of child allowance was that in the very early C20th, women that had children found it very hard to earn money and married women with children were pretty much unemployable.

A group of educated women took up the cause of women trying to bring up children without a reliable income and in the end forced it into law. Many of that group went on to become a core of the fight to secure the vote for women in the UK.

chopperharris

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

Schooling is an up front cost that society reaps the benefit of in later years.

So does state funded procreating in making more consumers and tax payers.A chicken and egg argument really...its great how when state education , nhs free for having kids starts to be compared in the same manner as benefits then defence kicks in of ones hard earned.

Generali

ninky wrote: »

the cost to the taxpayer for children is far greater than child benefit. free schooling and healthcare (including maternity care) cost more than child benefit.

i'd rather have children provided for than punish parents for having children they can't support.

however, i think there is something to be said for shifting the mindset that encourages procreation. being childfree should be seen as a valid, if not admirable, position. also the benefits of being childfree both on future finances and lifestyle could be better encouraged. i don't think the condems are helping with all the talk about giving married couples tax breaks and putting the family at the centre of things (by which they clearly mean the nuclear family of mum, dad and kids).

The crazy thing about current child welfare payments is that women are financially rewarded for having children in situations that generally lead to bad outcomes for the children and for the larger society in which those children live.

Mrs Generali and I would be better off financially if we separated. I earn the best part of £60,000 a year and still the (Australian) state wants to incentivise our divorce.

chopperharris

Generali wrote: »

Not true.

The history of child allowance was that in the very early C20th, women that had children found it very hard to earn money and married women with children were pretty much unemployable.

A group of educated women took up the cause of women trying to bring up children without a reliable income and in the end forced it into law. Many of that group went on to become a core of the fight to secure the vote for women in the UK.

The nhs and schooling system helped the rich more than the poor too.It helped keep a country fit for war , and educate the workers at basic level cheapening the wage bill.

We can choose to believe what reasons are given or to open our minds to the real reason.Another reason for cb was men were spending the wages on drink , bookies etc so women got this pin money.

Women that were poor entered the workforce long before the birth of social security , working for the real middling classes was one way , prostitution or in the rich folks mill was another as the cottage industries were destroyed to line their pockets...which led to the birth of the liberals and labour parties to fight the kind of injustices that benefit bashing today was done less publicly.

pinkteapot

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/middle-class-could-be-forced-to-pay-for-things-they-can-afford-201008183010/

ninky_2

Generali wrote: »

Mrs Generali and I would be better off financially if we separated. I earn the best part of £60,000 a year and still the (Australian) state wants to incentivise our divorce.

how do you calculate this? perhaps the state would provide more for you each individually, but whether you would actually be "better off" financially is debatable as costs are also higher to run 2 seperate homes etc. plenty of studies show that on average women in particular are worse off after divorce (probably not the case if they had stayed single in the first place).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1556706/Women-worse-off-after-divorce.html

StevieJ

Generali wrote: »

Another way to look at things of course would be to say that people should pay their own way generally and that people should be free to chose how to live their lives without expecting a subsidy or to subsidise as a result.

Ah yes, Labour social engineering and the Tories Libertarians to a man/women