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

ILW

kabayiri wrote: »

Blimey!

The White Horse has hacked Hamish's account!

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

I think they may be a bit of a sore point at the moment.

beth58_2

DKLS wrote: »

A big fat zero in benefits, just the way I like it, I prefer to support myself through my endeavours. Still grates when I see how much tax I am paying out though, If for any reason I had to claim jobseekers my mother would beat me senseless with disgust.

Then lets pray your never hit by a car or struck down with an illness which distroys your life.

However, I do agree with the sentiment that the lazy should not be afforded a decent lifestyle funded by the benefits system. We do need to go back to the drawing board to create a system of support for those who genuinely need it.

mark5

We get,
Child benefit £80 every 4 weeks
Tax Credits £37 every month
Free prescriptions.

We pay for private dental care

We pay about £1500 per year council tax plus about £11500 income tax and NI contributions.

dori2o

Whilst I do agree we need to get the lazy populus off their backsides the problem is having enough jobs for them to fill. Until the recovery in the UK is sufficient to sustaing jobs growth, we are always going to have a problem with people on benefits, only they will no longer be unwilling to work, but unable to.

martinbuckley

I pay tax and live in England. My taxes help fund the extra spending on every man, woman and child that lives in Scotland.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

lemonjelly wrote: »

I fail to see the point of the thread.

Seems to be another "I've got lots of money me, lets boast about it & argue I pay more in tax than I get from the system" style thread.

It is just a way of having a go at a few people.

You're right. You failed to see the point of this thread.

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.

I've already stated I have no objection to the NHS. I think it's a valuable system. It could probably be more efficient, but that's a different argument.

Likewise we all use basic infrastructure services that society has determined it is better to provide for the collective. Roads, post office, tax collection, police, prisons, etc.

Nobody is arguing against that.

What we are arguing is that some of us pay more than our fair share, whilst many pay far less than their fair share.

I'm not arguing for me to pay less, or get more. I am arguing that others should pay more.... And/or receive less.

A different example. I may not have kids, so why should I fund the education of other peoples kids? Perhpas I can see that there will be a long term value in an educated society. They will be the doctors, nurses, engineers, army etc of tomorrow. Perhaps if I ever get knocked over, one of them will drive the ambulance to get me to hospital. Another will operate & save me. thers too will care for me & rehabilitate me.

Some people are so one dimensional & me me me me me orientated I am suprised, and a little ashamed.

You really did miss the point of this thread.....

Try looking past the poster for a change. You may find it helps.

I'll repeat the key points.

Now try to play the ball, not the man.

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

Emy1501

£2250 for child benefit, about £400 tax credits, about £2250 DLA plus also don not pay any tax on 6k a year in respect of childcare vouchers so you could argue we get 6k in benefits a year. The only one I think is really reasonable is DLA for one of our children.

The problem is lender have lent mortgages etc based on these benefits and people have become used to them. If you take them away people will have less to spend and could be the difference of being able to pay the mortgage and not for some.

Cleaver

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

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.

You kind of will use the NHS then, as pretty much all private hospitals use NHS staff, equipment and infrastructure. I agreed with a lot of your original post by the way.

Procrastinator333

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.

I'm certainly closer to this than where we are today - Until this child benefit thing kicked off, I actually had no idea there was such a thing as universal benefits (pension, bus pass maybe, but not child benefit). I just assumed that no government was stupid enough to give cash benefits to the wealthiest parts of society. It never even entered my mind that when we have kids in the next few years we would have been entitled to benefits tax free. That is just nuts!

Anyway, that is a tangent. To comment on your post.

I don't think you can put a limit on it. Such as your 4 year limit. As with anything there will be those outliers who through no fault of their own are unemployed.

"A net below which none shall fall, but all are free to rise"

Whatever the benefits, I don't they should be pulled for some arbitrary time limit.

I also do believe in wealth re-distribution (though perhaps to a lesser extent than today). I don't know where I draw all the lines. But to my mind, I have no problem with the state offering a fairly generous helping hand to say a couple, one on £25k, one part time on £8k. Though I actually think the easiest thing to do in a situation like this is to simply not tax them anything (but that is a different debate).

I agree with sentiment in the other threads. There should be zero cash benefits for middle classes. I don't know where the cut off is, but after something like a £50k income you should be on your own.

I quite like the conservative soundbite of no family on benefits should get more than the average working family.

I like the lib dem policy of increasing the lower tax band. It seems like the simplest way to give more money to the lowest earners. If there was no PAYE or NI on the first £15k, you could scrap a load of the other benefits.

I think tax allowances should be transferable between partners.

I believe drugs should be legalised and taxed (perhaps not heroin, but that's about it). How much do we get from Tobacco and alcohol a year?

Prisons could be turned in to factories, there must be some monotenous labour that can be dished out to inmates to recoup some of the cost of their stay.

Private industry should be put on the case of benefit cheats and tax evaders. Allow private firms access to the databases of the government. Let them keep 10% of all taxes they uncover and benefit cheats they discover.

The penalty for benefit cheats should be simple - no more benefits - ever.

Taxes for all forms of income should be brought in to line. I agree with Clegg that is is wrong that the richest people pay the lowest tax rates in terms of %.

I would also put a national DNA database to a referendum. I would like there to be one, but I think that would need to be on a referendum. Could you imagine the reduction in crime rates, increase in conviction rates? Once set up, crime rates would plummet overnight.

Anyway, that turned in to a bit of verbal diaoreah. But that is my 2 pence. Have a good evening.

Cleaver

Just to join the moral highground, I've never claimed a penny of unemployment benefit, but that's probably more to do with the fact that I've had pretty supportive parents and when I couldn't find a job for a few weeks one summer from university I just lived at home rent free.

I've never used the NHS aside from the GP, but not ever having to use a hospital (other than one quick minor trip to A&E once) when you're in your late twenties is probably something to be pleased about.

My Mum had great treatment through the NHS for cancer though, I was personally very grateful to the staff and generally the NHS with regard to how she was treated. She had three separate courses of chemo over a period of ten years and right up to her death she was treated with dignity and respect by the staff. We had one small issue towards the end of her lilfe with her treatment plan, but I guess after years of treatment you should expect one or two small problems: you realise fairly quickly that although there's a great deal of knowledge out there, a lot of cancer treatment is still a bit experimental and they don't know if some of it will work until they try it. Without sounding pious, if my taxes go towards someone out there getting the same level of care then I'm quite happy. Obviously I'd like to see some of the massive waste taken out of the NHS as well. Apologies to all those who don't like to see a mixed opinion on this forum, I know it's confusing.

I don't get any type of benefit as we don't have any kids and I have a vague concept that people with kids get some sort of tax / child benefit. Which I guess is fine.

Like most people I think too many people claim unemployment / disability benefit. I'd like to see that culture being changed.

I don't really connect what I pay out of my taxes with what happens in the real world, which I know sounds odd. Lets say they cut all the waste from the NHS and the military, cut benefits by half and sorted out transport and education so there was 30% less wastage. I still don't think my taxes would be lowered, they'd just find something else to spend it on, or I'd pay it in another way.

This is another one of those posts where I've reached the end and I'm not sure what point I wanted to make. More apologies to you all.