BENEFITS REFORM: Child benefit move 'unfair' (From Oxford Mail)

The new reform on child benefits is completely fair and justified!
Infact I would suggest going a step further and scrapping all child benefits completely!
The simple fact is that if parents can not afford to have children they should not have them! They are completely selfish if they expect the state to keep THEIR children! Many taxpayers can hardly afford to live or support themselves let alone support other peoples children.
This proposal is only going to affect those who have a single income of £45k or a joint one of £80k anyway …people on this income obviously have a comfortable lifestyle and anybody who expects to scrounge benefits off the taxpayer to support their children are unbelievably greedy and they should be embarrassed & ashamed!!

It's so unfair we only earn 40,000 a year! lol get a life darling I don't know anyone who earns that amount, try surviving in Oxford on less than 20,000 a year like lots do.

For some, the child benefit subsidises mornings spent in coffee shops and expensive cars.

It is now time for a reality check, I'm afraid.

The higher earners won't miss it!

scotta - Harsh words there, lets not forget the children are our future - its the people who are scrounging and have never put in to the system that should be hit the hardest.

Maybe the goverment should stop handing out free houses to single parents?????

Quentin Walker wrote:
For some, the child benefit subsidises mornings spent in coffee shops and expensive cars. It is now time for a reality check, I'm afraid.

I could not agree more if I tried, Quentin. Child benefit should not be paid to help yummy mummies take their little darlings in the Land Rover to Costa for a baby latte.

As someone set to lose this benefit can I say that I completely agree with the principal that high earners shouldn't receive this money.
What I have an issue with is the idiocy of the implementation of the policy – whereby a household with two £40k earners would continue to receive this benefit whereas a household with one £45k+ earner won’t?
It also worries me somewhat that no one in the government seems to have anticipated the hoo-ha that this blatant inequality would generate.
The cut-off point for this benefit (wherever that lies) has surely got to be judged on total parental household income?

IMHO the Child Benefit cut is fair, end of. The problem is our powers to be missed the critical flaw in their plans by not agreeing a cut off rate for families where both parents earn a wage.
It is laughable that a household could bring in joint wages totalling £80’000 a year, and still get child benefits.

Maybe the goverment should stop handing out free houses to single parents?????

What's with all the single parent bashing?? What an ignorant comment. I am a single parent and have certainly never been handed a free house - I work hard and always have done and know plenty of other single mums that do.

One tory MP was questioned about these cuts on the news the other night and his response to the statement 'these cuts seem unfair to single parent families' was 'we aim to help those who strive!' - typical tory - Eton educated, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and completelycompletely out of touch with the real world!! As if you don't strive just because you're a single parent - makes my blood boil!!!!!

The world is a competitive place and in the next 50 years is going to be even more so, in a way that most people probably can't imagine. 2 billion Chinese and Indian workers, (coupled with booming Russian & Brazilian economies) competing with us for our jobs and standard of living. (I am oversimplifying the case but the essence is true). To prepare for this we need to get out of the cosy cosy mentality, 'the Govt needs to help the people', we should help each other out etc. Relying on this ideology would see us doomed. The only thing that will maintain our competitive edge is Gordon Gekko style self interest and greed. Ultimately, weaning people off state support is 100% vital in preparing for a tough future.

I agree the higher earners don't need it. What winds me up is those that have never worked, don't want to work, have benefits galore end up getting more money a year that myself and my partner earn combined - stop someof these and then the goverment would save money. I understand some people cannot work due to a genuine disability, but there are many who could but won't - playing the system and think its called !

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to say a household income of £s whether single or joint surely. Will get it, anything over that doesn't

Simples !

moomoo83 wrote:
Maybe the goverment should stop handing out free houses to single parents????? What's with all the single parent bashing?? What an ignorant comment. I am a single parent and have certainly never been handed a free house - I work hard and always have done and know plenty of other single mums that do. One tory MP was questioned about these cuts on the news the other night and his response to the statement 'these cuts seem unfair to single parent families' was 'we aim to help those who strive!' - typical tory - Eton educated, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and completelycompletely out of touch with the real world!! As if you don't strive just because you're a single parent - makes my blood boil!!!!!

What's with all the single parent bashing?? What an ignorant comment. I am a single parent and have certainly never been handed a free house - I work hard and always have done and know plenty of other single mums that do.

One tory MP was questioned about these cuts on the news the other night and his response to the statement 'these cuts seem unfair to single parent families' was 'we aim to help those who strive!' - typical tory - Eton educated, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and completelycompletely out of touch with the real world!! As if you don't strive just because you're a single parent - makes my blood boil!!!!!

Not bashing single parents at all but why should they get a free house???????

I've had to work for everything I've got - why should someone else be given it on a plate????

We all get the same chance in life - nothing more to say.

Gotta agree with Quentin and Green - these are the same mothers who bleat that parents like myself are not giving our children a good upbringing because (shudder) we work - yet how spending time yakking in Debenhams cafe while little Flauvian Horatio is left to his own devices, strapped in the designer buggy for a couple of hours, is quality time invested in your child I do not know... Admittedly, we do not earn anything like £44k between us, so are sitting more comfortably than we had expected to be when the government first started talking about cutting child benefit -we'd expected the usual - 'working-parents-on-
low-incomes-to-get-s
tung-hardest-and-fir
st' Tory favourite system. Many of these high-earners are complaining bitterly because they were inspired to vote Cameron based on his Eton education and the traditional Tory devotion to the more comfortably well-off - I guess they'd also expected a bigger bonus for themselves, and those who can't afford to evade tax and who struggle to pay the mortgage/rent to be dealt a few extra kicks. I also agree with elperro - surely the cut should focus on a household income figure rather than a single wage. It doesn't take into account private income, income from properties rented out... the list is endless. I think the word Mr Cameron is looking for in his reasoning for not doing this is that it would be democratic - bureaucracy is the Tory essential ingredient, so not hard to see why they refuse to do the job properly.

I also agree with scenicafc - the benefits system needs a carefully thought out overhaul - not the gung-ho bold statements that we are currently hearing. From 2013, they are trying to cap benefits at £26k p.a. -tax-free. If only I had never worked.... Many of us in the UK don't earn anything like that before tax.

scenicafc wrote:
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to say a household income of £s whether single or joint surely. Will get it, anything over that doesn't Simples !

Surely this would then be penalising couples? Aren't we trying to move away from the Labour incentive of making parents better off on their own, and rewarding the family unit?
It may be a little tough the way they've proposed it, but at least it's simple, and doesn't require 100s of jobs to implement it. I have many friends who fall into this category, and none of them mind the cut.
Perhaps someone earning just over the threshhold should consider shortening their working hours, thus making their salary just under? (and they can then spend more time with their kids!)

Volterra you appear to have a very severe mental illness I fear and do need to seek some therapy PDQ lest the damage become irreparable. A world of dog eat dog with everyone having the instrumentality of a Gordon Gekko you say ? (great name, like a lizard - ugly and thick skinned - the gekko not you of course). If this is what the world really needs to be like then perhaps we better stop it and ALL get off. But I suspect as ever you over egg the pudding old bean and your poor neo-liberal instincts, in a jekyll/hyde like manner, take over you without you being able to control things. Rather interesting though to see so much reverse-snobbery from those who appear to be Tory supporting - I thought the class war against the rich and sussessful was over and that teh poltiics of envy wa yesrterdays politics - but it has a ,sightly different hue now ? Locodogz calls it right - of course by any moral evaluation it seems fair that those who earn quite high salaries should not get benefts - most would agree however when a very big group of highly educated ministers ( and civil servants) are unable to form a policy that has no anomalies nor foresee the public outrage such anomalies will create - then I begin to worry that this really IS no time for a novice at the helm and I am afriad that Cameron along with Osborne and most of the rest are truly novices. This WILL be a one term Tory government - as the the Governor of the bank of England said a few months ago - this might be a good election to lose - I have never enjoyed a tory party conference so much in all of my Labour supporting life - watching good old TM squirm under Paxos quationing about when she heard about this 'back of a fag packet' policy announcment - and DC was going to bring back cabinet government ? I wonder if Cleggy Weggy was as surprised as everyone else - notice a distinct lack of ANY comment from ANY LibDem on the issues - bad journalism of were they told to lie low by the Tory Mafiosi - intereesting times ! toodles !

Scaramuccia wrote:
Volterra you appear to have a very severe mental illness I fear and do need to seek some therapy PDQ lest the damage become irreparable. A world of dog eat dog with everyone having the instrumentality of a Gordon Gekko you say ? (great name, like a lizard - ugly and thick skinned - the gekko not you of course). If this is what the world really needs to be like then perhaps we better stop it and ALL get off. But I suspect as ever you over egg the pudding old bean and your poor neo-liberal instincts, in a jekyll/hyde like manner, take over you without you being able to control things. Rather interesting though to see so much reverse-snobbery from those who appear to be Tory supporting - I thought the class war against the rich and sussessful was over and that teh poltiics of envy wa yesrterdays politics - but it has a ,sightly different hue now ? Locodogz calls it right - of course by any moral evaluation it seems fair that those who earn quite high salaries should not get benefts - most would agree however when a very big group of highly educated ministers ( and civil servants) are unable to form a policy that has no anomalies nor foresee the public outrage such anomalies will create - then I begin to worry that this really IS no time for a novice at the helm and I am afriad that Cameron along with Osborne and most of the rest are truly novices. This WILL be a one term Tory government - as the the Governor of the bank of England said a few months ago - this might be a good election to lose - I have never enjoyed a tory party conference so much in all of my Labour supporting life - watching good old TM squirm under Paxos quationing about when she heard about this 'back of a fag packet' policy announcment - and DC was going to bring back cabinet government ? I wonder if Cleggy Weggy was as surprised as everyone else - notice a distinct lack of ANY comment from ANY LibDem on the issues - bad journalism of were they told to lie low by the Tory Mafiosi - intereesting times ! toodles !

*braces himself for a bashing* Scara I didn't read all of your comment. I stopped at the point where you're unaware of who Gordon Gekko is. Volterra's point is entirely valid. Countries like China restrict the number of children parents can have and the children compete with each other for the very best. This creates a society of the best, the same in Russia and Japan. So it's no coincidence that they have nations of educated, hard working, respectful and ultimately rich people whilst we have a nation of soft, benefit scrounging dim wits. On to the point of the child benefit, if anybody 'deserves' it, it's the high earners. Afterall they contribute a massive whack of their salaries to society whilst it's the jobless that take the benefit and sit in Costa all day (trust me, take a trip to Bicester village anyday between 10-3pm its full of mummies with pushchairs gassing off in Carluccios with their Range Rover sports valet parked). Personally I don't want the child benefit and I think it should be scrapped entirely, if you can't afford to have a child you shouldn't be bringing one in to the world. However it's now seen as an easy ride, have a kid, get on the housing list, get benefits.