Now, while I can see inherent problems of fairness with the child benefit cut (yawn) - I do not have any issue with capping a family benefits at 26,000, or rather a 'salary' of 35k
What is wrong with this? That's a pretty nice amount to live on for an earner, why should someone on benefits take more when most workers will earn less?
I perfectly agree with helping people at the bottom - I don't people to be trapped in poverty, but I also want work to pay - this principally involves big tax cuts at the bottom and probable tax rises at the top (sorry), not giving massive hand-outs to people who don't, or won't, work, I do agree with benefits, supplements, tax breaks, but not funding a lifestyle that is actually better than the poor saps who work in the worst jobs can afford - that is not 'fair'
So capping benefits at a very reasonable level, seems rather appropriate to me
The only argument against this is that it hits large families, as your benefit won't keep going up as you pop out more dependants
But I'd like someone to explain to me, why it should keep going up with the amount of kids you have? - 35k is a decent amount for a typical family, and they do not get a salary rise with every kid - they budget, if they have nine kids on a salary of 35k that's their own fault...but if they are on benefit and not working, they should have their rising number of kids paid for by the state?
That's both unfair and economic madness - taxpayers do not get paid for children (except CB of course...), but major benefit claimants do - they are not subject to the same restrictions to those who actually work and live within their own means
I have every sympathy for the poor, but I don't see why they apparently have a right to reproduce ad infinitum, when the rest of us don't
Give them a salary and let them stick to it, like we do!
(also: for Diane Abbott's rather tetchy response that it punishes the ones who are already born - just make it a new contract, applies to children born after X date - then it's parents' own fault for their declining standard of living)
08 October 2010
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Universality applies only to 'families' - I was being wound up by Radio 4 callers this morning constantly going on about how families were being hit and the childless got off scot-free
ReplyDeleteThat's completely untrue - as the BBC report shows, families have been gaining constantly for the past twenty years, with breaks, benefits, credits and the like while only the childless workers have been losing proportionally through tax rises - eventually it had to swing back or the argument boils down to squeezing us for the sake of everybody else's kids forever more
We're taking away something they haven't always had, but no-one ever mentions the other things they have been given over the years - they ignore the tax breaks, and moan about the credit cuts...
Also, the whole idea of universality is 'unfair' - it's easy, but still unfair, why should someone earning 20k get the same as someone on 100k, or 50k? It's a waste of cash to pay people like MPs and paying everyone (or every family) the same amount is a crock