'Do you support public spending cuts?' poll discussion

angiebhfx

tr8 wrote: »

Cuts are the only option you cannot spend what you dont have.
Benifits should only be paid in tokens, and if you are unemployed mustdo at least 2 days a week working for the comunity, whether that is help an old person tidy there garden or picking litter from the beach, woods etc. Nothing is for FREE. Put a Cap on civil servant pension and wages about 8 times lowest paid, I think thats to high but others will complain

There seems to be a complete misconception of benefits. Say for eg you are single rent a single persons flat and your employer makes you redundant. You have only worked for the company for 20 months so you aren't entitled to SRP. You can claim JSA, Housing Benefit & Council Tax Benefit. The HB may not pay all your rent so you would have to pay a top up. In a addition the weekly maximum benefit amount paid to a claimant is £65.45 there is no additional money that is it. So you still have gas electric, water, telephone TV and Food, toiletries and household goods to be paid out off £65.45. I couldn't do it could you?

angiebhfx

ScarletBea wrote: »

I think the people that voted No think that money falls from the sky.... indefinitely...

I think you will find that most people that voted no are probably happy to pay through tax for the services that we need rather than not wanting cuts. I for one say bring back 25% income tax.

angiebhfx

astralbee wrote: »

I have worked in the public sector for 17 years now - for the DWP, Inland Revenue, and the NHS. Nobody can deny that there is tremendous wastage everywhere you look in the public sector.

The DWP have some staff sat idle because their jobs are easy and go unchecked, meanwhile other staff are being overworked to the point that they go off on long-term-sick with stress during which time the tax payer pays for them not to be at work. Political correctness has driven the prescription of benefits to the point where the government are scared to challenge entitlement on medical or residency grounds for fear of reprisal from disability and ethnic action groups, so millions are paid out to persons who actually have no legal recourse to public funds. A few years ago they installed expensive colour laser printers around the country solely to print giro cheques in black ink only. Recently one department I know dumped thousands of pounds worth of printer paper into a skip because they bought the wrong weight for their printers and could not send it back.

Inland Revenue have one wing of the organisation taking money off people, and another (the Tax Credit Office) giving it back.

The NHS has people on the payroll simply to tell us all to eat more fruit and veg. It puts expensive computer equipment on the desks of mobile nurses who are at their desks for about an hour a day and prefer to write things down anyway. Hospitals don't just have managers, they have 'executive directors' who command massive salaries and massive cars. Some of these directors are also "non-executive" and get almost as many benefits for showing up to a couple of meetings per month.

Since government departments were made responsible for their own budgets in the 1980s in an attempt to make them more competetive, the reality is that EVERY department goes on a wild spending spree every March to use up any budget saved because if they don't use it, it gets cut; and it is this culture which has spiralled out of control.

Cuts are needed, but there shouldnt be any need for job losses when there is so much wastage on goods and top heavy senior management. Sorry if you disagree, but I'm only reporting what I have seen with my own eyes.

Whilst I agree with you, I do think that some of the problem lies with how departments are funded. Departments and councils should be rewarded for not spending their annual budget and we should move away from digging up roads in March to get rid of any money left in the budget

angiebhfx

zierisaver wrote: »

2.6 million people in the UK are on incapacity benefit - roughly 1 in 20 of the population. In Scotland this jumps to more than 1 in 10. Can anyone really say that this accurately reflects the state of health in this country? It's a joke and something's got to give. It's ok blaming "the bankers" for the state of the economy, but that only reflects a tiny part of the problem.

It's just not that simple, most employers have a bug up their bottoms about sick. So you have MS and you have good days and bad, you need to take time off sick, employers don't like that so someone who is disabled isn't a viable option they cost money. We need a sea change in employers attitudes and disabled people need more support to get back to work. If a person is on benefits and received Housing Tax benefits and Council Tax benefits if they wanted to work part-time they would lose their HB & CTB and would be worse off not better off. Some people can just not physically or mentally work 35 - 40 hours per week.

I volunteer and I meet disabled people volunteering a few hours a week so a great majority do contribute to society.

Eilagoss

Yes I think we need to reduce the debts, but I am not sure that cutting virtually everything by 25% is the answer. If you make so many civil servants, military personel, NHS staff, and local government employees redundant, who is going to suffer, and where does all the money for their redundancy payments come from? Better to employ the useful people than to sack them and have to pay them job seekers allowance. I suspect the best people to get rid of are those at the top who are getting obsecene amounts of money for deciding how to make savings and who to get rid of!! We should reduce government spending by stopping payments to those who could or definitely should work - or more important catch all those who are cheating the system. If you get rid of the civil servants who catch all those cheats out there more people will get away with it.
We give virtually the worst pensions in the world, I think it is very important to look at upping the basic pension and getting rid of the benefit cheats. Perhaps you could have another poll option asking whether people think we need to make some cuts, however everyone will want their particular thing (ie schools, NHS, childrens services) to be saved!

Saucepot

Prosperity is not attained by living beyond your means. As a country, spending beyond our means creates a burden for future generations.

pigswillfly

The cuts might be needed in certain areas of the public sector? But when you have people such as Tony McGuirk talking about how he cut the fire service in Liverpool at the TUC Conference its totally misleading.

If people are shirking its down to poor management and poor leadership, there's a real leadership gap at the moment right across the country, the world in fact. We need to keep people working and being productive in some way otherwise the bill at the other end is going to be far more for ALL of us.

In Cuba they say "We pretend to work and the Government pretend to pay us" That could be a looming reality for the public sector here.

The private sector, its all a lot of hogwash: Water, Telecoms, Gas, Electric. Transport that should all be going in to the public coffers not into the a*se pockets of the few.

LSEdwards

Potsdamerplatz wrote: »

As for the guy above who said frontline services won't be cut, the police in certain areas including Strathclyde are making 1 in 4 of their staff redudant. Many of these will be civilian staff but also older policemen who will be taking their pension a few years early.

The whole country has gone to the dogs.

Incorrect, Strathclyde Police may have to reduce non-front line staff by 25%.
Police numbers will still be higher than they were 10 years ago even after the potential reductions.
UK Public spending is not being cut, it increases in cash terms every year over the next five years.

LSEdwards

pigswillfly wrote: »

The private sector, its all a lot of hogwash: Water, Telecoms, Gas, Electric. Transport that should all be going in to the public coffers not into the a*se pockets of the few.

You will of course have seen the latest anaysis which shows that public sector employees on average are paid much more than private sector employees.

LSEdwards

Eilagoss wrote: »

Yes I think we need to reduce the debts, but I am not sure that cutting virtually everything by 25% is the answer.

UK public spending is not being cut at all. It increases in cash terms every year over the next five years, by 15% in total.

Even under current plans public borrowing will increase to £1.3 trillion.