Should automatic benefits be cut for those who "don't need them"?

ukcarper

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Why would it? Just continue to pay to all and put a box on the tax return saying "have you received winter fuel allowance" if ticked yes, the computation automatically claws back last year's payment (I.e. dec 2011 payment recovered in jan 2013, but funded by the dec 2012 payment.

I haven’t had a tax return form since I retired in fact being basic rate payer I didn’t have many when I worked. If we are limiting universal benefits to those on basic rate tax or lower then I don’t think the savings will be great. Picking a fare level say £15k a year would be hard to implement.

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Anyway, following on from my opening post, if bus passes and the winter fuel payment is to stay as it is now....as seems the prevelant message on this thread so far...

...what should we cut?

The discussion stems from Discussion Time on the BBC. There is a pledge to reduce the welfare bill by 10%. While not solving the problem, the idea of removing these payments to those who don't need it was on step towards achieving that 10%.

But if they are to stay, what do we cut instead?

Child benefit? Income Support? Disability benefits? Winter payments for those below a certain age? Jobseekers? Carers allowance? ESA? Housing benefit?

Maybe one of more of the following. But consideration needs to be paid towards the fact that if we keep winter fuel allowance paid to all over a certain age, we'll need to cut more from any other benefits to achieves the pledge.

On a secondary note, even cuting the welfare system by 10% still leaves it under a growing defecit each year.

I'm a bit annoyed by the inhumane suggestion and certainly don't want to tarnish myself by arguing why I think it's sensible to cut back on giving money to people who don't need it. So I have now accepted I'm in the minority in believing these payments should be cut back. But it still leaves the problem.

I can't remember the 'pledge' to reduce the welfare budget in either the conservative or lib-dem manifesto.

did I miss it?

Graham_Devon

CLAPTON wrote: »

I can't remember the 'pledge' to reduce the welfare budget in either the conservative or lib-dem manifesto.

did I miss it?

Apologies, it was £10bn, not 10%. But either way, the pledge is here.

It wasn't in the manifesto. I never said or implied it was.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/another-10bn-needs-to-be-slashed-from-welfare-bill-says-george-osborne-7580561.html

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Apologies, it was £10bn, not 10%. But either way, the pledge is here.

It wasn't in the manifesto. I never said or implied it was.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/another-10bn-needs-to-be-slashed-from-welfare-bill-says-george-osborne-7580561.html

of course you didn't

so was the pledge as definite as

'we have no plans to increase VAT'
or
'increase VAT on pasties'
or
'cap charity contibutions'
or
'introduce a fuel price regulator'
or
'reduce immigration to 10s of thousands
or
..............

but I do in fact support the reform of the benefits system

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Apologies, it was £10bn, not 10%. But either way, the pledge is here.

It wasn't in the manifesto. I never said or implied it was.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/another-10bn-needs-to-be-slashed-from-welfare-bill-says-george-osborne-7580561.html

Although that is not exactly a pledge both LibDem and Tories pledge not to remove winter fuel allowance in run up to 2010 election.

grizzly1911

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Why would it? Just continue to pay to all and put a box on the tax return saying "have you received winter fuel allowance" if ticked yes, the computation automatically claws back last year's payment (I.e. dec 2011 payment recovered in jan 2013, but funded by the dec 2012 payment.

Fair point guv.

What if they fail to tick it or my wife received it not me?

Just out of interest I wonder how much it costs to check a tax return, there must be some ball park figures based on level of complexity.

grizzly1911

wotsthat wrote: »

If there's going to be a flat rate pension that isn't means tested there should be no need to top it up with means tested benefits.

No free TV licenses, winter fuel allowances, bus passes etc. It's not a case of wishing ill on today's pensioners because these changes will take years to implement but in 20 odd years when I retire I expect to get none of these perks.

IMO there will always be an element of top up to the basic/flat rate pension because there will always be "special cases", may not be called pension guarantee or whatever it is called now.

I struggle to see the TV license as a real cost, it is just less in the pot for the BBC, a bit like a no cost freebie that sounds good.

Fuel should be adequately catered for in the flat rate pension as should the ongoing disproportionate inflation.

Bus passes is another interesting one as although this is labelled an Aged Person Pass, if it whatever payment were removed from the bus companies I wonder how many routes would be culled or a subsidy used from A N other budget to keep socially necessary routes open.

I have no issue in the Benefit In Kind being added to an individual and taxed for income over a realistic threshold of say £20k for arguments sake.

N1AK

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Firstly I don't see any generations have lumbered us with this predicament - politicians trying to prolong their existence yes.

It could also be that they aren't so clever at recovering tax and thus have to spend more, as a proportion, on welfare and other things have reduced to complement. Perhaps we are not spending so much on a nuclear deterrent or armed forces.

People voted for those politicians. If the best defence for the financial mismanagement they voted for is that voters in the 50s-80s were too incompetent to be expected to pick decent MPs it's a pretty damning verdict on our democracy.

I actually do have a pretty good understanding of how government spending has changed and I can assure you that the increase in pensions is real. Government spending as a proportion of GDP has remained pretty consistent until very recently:

CLAPTON

N1AK wrote: »

People voted for those politicians. If the best defence for the financial mismanagement they voted for is that voters in the 50s-80s were too incompetent to be expected to pick decent MPs it's a pretty damning verdict on our democracy.

I actually do have a pretty good understanding of how government spending has changed and I can assure you that the increase in pensions is real. Government spending as a proportion of GDP has remained pretty consistent until very recently:

you graph seems to show that government spending as a proportion of GDP hasn't been fairly constant until fairly recently.

e.g. the spend now looks very like the spend in the 1970s

N1AK

ukcarper wrote: »

I’m not sure £100 a week is enough to live on which is what the state pension would be if you reduced it by 8%.

On the subject of what tax payers done for the country between 1950 and 1990 they did reduce the national dept from almost 250% of GDP to less than 50%.

I think £100 is enough to live by but it certainly isn't as high as I would like it to be. I'd love to be able to give pensioners mega-money, to have 1 teacher for every 5 children and world peace but I don't believe we can afford it. I think that our tax take at the moment is already about as high as sustainable. We taxing ~36% of GDP consistently now which is as high (averaging) as its been since before the 60s (there was a short spike in the early 80s). If we don't cut spending now then the cuts in spending later will be even worse. In other words by having a £100 pension now we may be able to afford an £80 pension in 20 years. If we pay £110 now then we'll be luck if we can do £60 for those retiring in 20 years (figures made up for sake of example).

I don't intend to imply that the previous generations did nothing economically. However the shrink in debt as % of GDP is because of GDP growth not paying debts off. In £s our debt has increased by 15,000% between the end of the war and now. Keep in mind that between WWI and WWII it increased by only 300% (1/50th of the amount). Also keep in mind that the majority of the decrease in debt as a % of GDP happened before the 60s (as the economy recovered from the war, while we still had a huge army and we had just lost an incredible amount of our working population).

Truly the generation of young-middle aged adults alive during WWII were incredible people. They fought a war and when it finished lived well within their means when they, surely more than any since, deserved everything they could ask for.