List The Benefits You Receive. Can the state afford them?

silvercar

A different example. I may not have kids, so why should I fund the education of other peoples kids?

As other people do have children, it is better that they are educated than roaming the streets in feral packs.

lostinrates

lemonjelly wrote: »

LIR none of my post was aimed at yourself.

Hmmm.Maybe I'm tetchy. Go on, put some boots on for me LJ *

My worry is that this is way too narrow a perspective. We don't look at some of the benefits we all get..

I sympathise with this, as a UK-phile some things that we pay tax for here are important to me. However, just because I am in a lucky** position doesn't mean I can't have a philosophical objection to some of them sometimes without it being selfishness. Sometimes one is selfish.

It is the narrow mindedness and selfishness that gets me LIR.

Sometimes, dear thing, I think we are all selfish and hypocritical, its degrees and habitude and empathy that vary.

The initial "you" was aimed at Hamish & the OP. I feel the OP is unnecessary given some of the other shennanigans we've seen on here recently, & actually is designed to be inflammatory.

which, still-dear-thing, is why I posted in the way I did...I like it when something I think is challenged non combatively and politely. Sometimes an impersonal response from a similar angle can change things a litle.

*I am not tetchy, keep your breeks on.
**lucky, aka luck combined with hard work and different life paths etc etc etc

bendix

lemonjelly wrote: »

You & bendix both posted to never having used the NHS. Really? How were you born? Did you get immunised as children? Did you ever go to school? If no, then ok. However if the answer to any of the above are yes, then you will & have used state systems.
I will assume you use the PAYE system to pay your taxes.

bendix is off abroad a lot I gather, so will be using the airports, CAA & other associated systems.

As children I assume you had access to BT, B Gas etc before they were sold off.

.

Utterly ridiculous argument. There is a fundamental difference between using basic state services which are unavoidable such as airport services and roads and education when, as a minor, you can't make personal choices about how you are educated (and which are more than covered by our taxes) compared to taking monetary benefits when you don't - in theory - need them.

THAT, i suspect, is the point of the thread, and you full well know that.

It has been sparked by the debate started by carolt's revelation of her anger at losing child benefits, despite it becoming apparent that by any logical and moral argument, her family's earning position in the top 10% of households in the country suggests she doesn't need them.

To compare getting cash benefits to using the roads is intellectually vapid.

And, for the record, I have never used the NHS since being born. I'm afraid, i didnt have the powers of persuasion to fully articulate my case at the time.

lemonjelly

bendix wrote: »

Utterly ridiculous argument. There is a fundamental difference between using basic state services which are unavoidable such as airport services and roads and education when, as a minor, you can't make personal choices about how you are educated (and which are more than covered by our taxes) compared to taking monetary benefits when you don't - in theory - need them.

THAT, i suspect, is the point of the thread, and you full well know that..

I disagree. There are many on here who simply feel that all tax they pay is too much regardless, & are only too happy to have an agenda to shout at those less fortunate, as well as the shysters.

bendix wrote: »

It has been sparked by the debate started by carolt's revelation of her anger at losing child benefits, despite it becoming apparent that by any logical and moral argument, her family's earning position in the top 10% of households in the country suggests she doesn't need them...

No real issue with this.

bendix wrote: »

And, for the record, I have never used the NHS since being born. I'm afraid, i didnt have the powers of persuasion to fully articulate my case at the time.

As you so eloquently say, tough.;)

My belief is that benefits should only be for those who genuinely need them. Fraud is a seperate thing. However there is a massive bandwagon being jumped on with this thread - trying to engineer some sniping and falling out rather than having a genuine purpose.

We all use public services all the time. Trouble is, too many of us feel we use less than we put in, or that the services we use are the essentials & needed, whereas everything else is a luxury that can be done without.

Hence, too many are too narrow minded.

StevieJ

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Ah, I see what you're getting at.

I meant I don't use the NHS, not that I never get ill or never see a doctor.

I have private medical and dental insurance.

Look after you if you have a car accident will they, I know my local BUPA hospital won't.

lemonjelly

StevieJ wrote: »

Look after you if you have a car accident will they, I know my local BUPA hospital won't.

IIRC there are other issues around treatment around self harm & the like, where "self inflicted" injuries and dangerous sports injuries etc can be refused treatment.

LydiaJ

Well, I know I'll probably get blasted for it, but I'm venturing onto this thread to put the point of view of a benefit-claimant.

I was born in an NHS hospital and have had two kids in another one. I've always used the NHS - from childhood vaccinations, through adolescent orthodontics, to physio when something went wrong with my leg. My kids are using the NHS now. I took dd to A&E when she was two weeks old - her three-year-old big brother had dropped her on the floor and I couldn't wake her up, which was terrifying. NHS hospitals did a fantastic job of plating ds's arm back together after the accident that killed late-nearly-ex.

Like anyone else, I benefit from armed forces, police, courts, prisons etc doing what they do to keep us all safe, and the local things like recycling, road resurfacing and all that sort of stuff.

My parents paid for my education at primary and secondary school, but the state paid my university fees, and my PhD was funded by one of the research councils. My own kids are at a state school.

When I first had my kids, I got CB and nothing else. When CTC was introduced we intially got a very small amount. Then late-nearly-ex lost his job. He didn't claim JSA because his severance pay (while not covering everything his pay had covered) meant that he wasn't eligible, but our CTC went up which helped a bit. We still had to borrow from my parents to cover the rent, though. I went back to work as soon as I could, even though dd had only just turned 1 and I'd hoped to have longer at home with her. Late-nearly-ex got a new job after only a few months out of work, and we got less CTC again.

A couple of years later he left me, and I increased my hours at work and claimed more CTC/WTC. I really don't know how I could have afforded the childcare that enabled me to work otherwise. Now my kids are both at school, childcare's a lot cheaper - just after school club a few days a week. (Since I'm a teacher I can look after my kids myself in school holidays although that's very expensive for parents in normal jobs.)

Last year, late-nearly-ex died. I now get widowed parent's allowance from the state (based on late-nearly-ex's NI contributions), and widow's pensions from both his pension schemes. I get less CTC/WTC than before because my WPA and pensions are included in the means testing, whereas the maintenance that late-nearly-ex used to give me wasn't included.

I'm not ashamed of claiming these things. My perspective is that I'm doing my best under difficult circumstances that were not of my choosing, and I'm very grateful to the state for helping me through a time when it was difficult for me to make work pay enough to cover childcare plus household expenses. Almost all the benefits I've ever claimed have been child-related. I've hardly claimed for housing at all. (I worked for a year between school and university and I think I claimed HB then, but it's a long time ago and my memory is a bit hazy. I haven't claimed it since, or council tax benefit, although of course I get the 25% reduction for being the only adult in the house.)

I think it's a false dichotomy to talk about cutting CB or the education budget. Given how deep in debt the nation is, I suspect most things will need to be cut at least a bit. I'm expecting my CTC/WTC to be cut in the spending review, and I think that's right.

I don't think means testing CB is a good idea. A new system means testing every household with kids in it is a colossal task and a waste of money. I agree that it's silly for the richest to be getting a benefit they can perfectly well manage without, but since we already have a means tested benefit for people with kids, I think it would achieve the same result much more simply and cheaply just to subsume CB within CTC/WTC and allow the CTC/WTC taper etc to deal with it.

ILW

StevieJ wrote: »

Look after you if you have a car accident will they, I know my local BUPA hospital won't.

Don't think they are too clever with long term disabilities and pre existing conditions either.

kabayiri

bendix wrote: »

I pay enough tax to keep a small northern town in Cheezy Wotsit dinners for a decade. Am i happy about that? No. Do i accept it? Yes. It's the price I pay for living here. My choice at the end of the day.

Tonight in NorthernTown it's Cheezy Wotsits AND Cheesy Peas !!

Oh, is it the 5th? Ah well....it's bath night too.

kabayiri

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And how do you justify them?

As for me.....

I don't get Benefits or Tax Credits of any kind. I have never claimed a day of unemployment or any other state subsidy in my life. I was even privately educated as a child.

I don't use the NHS, the education system, or any other elective government services beyond statutory requirements such as DVLA and Passport Office, which are pay-per-use anyway.

I already pay more in taxes than 99% of the population, and use less in services than 99% of the population. The state makes a significant profit from me living here.

And yet bizarrely, those who do not work as hard as I do, who do not contribute to society as much as I do, and who do not take responsibility for providing for themselves as I do, expect me to pay more to subsidise them further?

Alrighty then.....

I suggest benefits of any kind should be reserved for the very poor, the very needy, or the very sick. By all means, I'm happy for their benefits to be increased. Particularly from the money we'll save by eliminating paying benefits to the middle classes who clearly don't need them.

If you're capable of working, the only benefits you receive should be a minimal short term safety net to recover from loss of job or illness. Let those be generous.... Let them be more generous than they are today. But let them be limited so that the amount you take out over a lifetime is no more than the amount YOU put in. I'm guessing around 4 years of eligibility per adult per lifetime would be about right.

Beyond that? Nothing.

Other than perhaps a dormitory bed and access to a soup kitchen and job centre. We won't let people starve or freeze to death, no matter how lazy or f eckless they may be. But we can't continue to enable the lazy and f eckless to be that way forever.

And for the love of god stop this nanny state, champagne socialist, middle class wealth redistribution nonsense we have now. Get rid of ALL middle class benefits and tax credits. Reduce the amount they pay in tax instead, and save the administrative costs of the state taking with one hand and giving back with another.

Get rid of free bus passes, winter fuel allowances, and state pensions for the well off. We don't need them, we won't miss them, and we don't deserve to have them.

And start treating benefits the way they are supposed to be.

Benefits should be a short term helping-hand-up, not a permanent hand-out.

A safety net, not an entitlement.

It's time to slash and burn our way through the benefits system, and make people that can pay their own way do so.

We can't afford not to.

Blimey!

The White Horse has hacked Hamish's account!

(I know it's not Hamish....no reference to House Prices)