&quot;Benefit cuts: Monday will be the day that defines this government...&quot;

A lot of these policies either make no sense at all or haven't been thought through. Whilst I do understand the need for a benefit cap, they've gone the wrong way about it.

Reply 2

Scumbaggio

12

The first problem I have is that these changes are driven by ideology and not necessity.

The second problem I have is that the electorate in this country are actually idiots and they have a very poor choice of who they wish to vote for anyway.

The whole Guardian vs Daily Mail thing is pretty juvenile though, I read both every day and there are good and bad articles and comments on both sites.

Reply 3

pol pot noodles

19

Original post by InnerTemple

Worth a read. I know some, particularly on this forum (which seems to be UKIP HQ for some reason), will believe it to be liberal, wishy washy, hand ringing nonsense.

You're right, parts of it do sound like liberal, wishy washy, hand ringing nonsense (UKIP HQ, good one, that's right it's everyone else, not you :rolleyes:

). I support the bedroom 'tax' on principle, and I fail to see how it's the government's fault that some tenants don't have the self-discipline to not spend their rent money and actually manage their finances properly like normal people do.
The fact is we have a large budget deficit, cuts have to be made to welfare, and some people will be worse off for it. That doesn't prove the Tories hate the poor; you can't exactly make welfare reforms that will affect the rich can you?
Other aspects of these 'reforms' I do find dubious though, like the cuts to legal aid.

Reply 4

The Guardian are obviously going to be against this, they have opposed every single measure that affects lower income people. Ultimately, we're all in this together" means everyone is going to have to take a hit.

The government have to dress it up as taking aim at scroungers, it makes it easier to swallow as no one considers themselves a scrounger.

Its hardly an avalanche of cuts either £18bn from £117bn is a 1.5% cut. To suggest it is going to push people into beggary is just alarmist. The author is being just as pathetic by going to extremes as the other papers she is criticising.

Reply 5

So, can we not afford to pay people benefits; but can give higher earners a tax cut?

Reply 6

Tactical Nuclear Penguin

Original post by doggyfizzel

The Guardian are obviously going to be against this, they have opposed every single measure that affects lower income people. Ultimately, we're all in this together" means everyone is going to have to take a hit.

The government have to dress it up as taking aim at scroungers, it makes it easier to swallow as no one considers themselves a scrounger.

Its hardly an avalanche of cuts either £18bn from £117bn is a 1.5% cut. To suggest it is going to push people into beggary is just alarmist. The author is being just as pathetic by going to extremes as the other papers she is criticising.

This. Polly Toynbee is often alarmist in this way and whenever I read one of her articles it is usually wrong in some way! She wrote a terrible one about the Big 4 accounting firms that showed such a lack of understanding of the issues that I wondered if it had been even slightly researched.

The cuts aren't as bad as many in the media are making out as you rightly point out.

Reply 7

meenu89

19

Could it be that she has axe to grind about reductions in spending/ benefit cuts? Her husband lost his job on a quango.

Reply 8

Scumbaggio

12

Original post by doggyfizzel

The Guardian are obviously going to be against this, they have opposed every single measure that affects lower income people. Ultimately, we're all in this together" means everyone is going to have to take a hit.

The government have to dress it up as taking aim at scroungers, it makes it easier to swallow as no one considers themselves a scrounger.

Its hardly an avalanche of cuts either £18bn from £117bn is a 1.5% cut. To suggest it is going to push people into beggary is just alarmist. The author is being just as pathetic by going to extremes as the other papers she is criticising.

does it?

Reply 9

Original post by OU Student

So, can we not afford to pay people benefits; but can give higher earners a tax cut?

Not exactly what happened. We cut the top tax rate and then adjusted the boundaries and allowances. The end result being, if you earn over £42k, you were worse off in the new system. Hardly a tax cut.

Original post by Scumbaggio

does it?

Yes.

Reply 10

Original post by doggyfizzel

Not exactly what happened. We cut the top tax rate and then adjusted the boundaries and allowances. The end result being, if you earn over £42k, you were worse off in the new system. Hardly a tax cut.

Millionaires will be paying £100k less tax. And anyone earning over £150k will have a 5% tax cut.

Reply 11

geetar

I'm against the cuts as they are happening (though there should be some cuts, and the system needs to be reformed), but it's incredibly presumptuous, not to say classic journalistic sensationalism, to say that, "People should know that historians will record the earthquake of social destruction that happened in their name".

Reply 12

InArduisFouette

21

Original post by OU Student

Millionaires will be paying £100k less tax.

millionaires ? or those earning a million as a salary ?

And anyone earning over £150k will have a 5% tax cut.

really despite the loss of personal allowances at that level of income and that income tax rate changes for higher only effects earnings over the threshold level

A future as labour chancellor awaits, you appear to have just as tenuous a grip on the systems as Bottler and Testicles...

Reply 13

Original post by OU Student

Millionaires will be paying £100k less tax. And anyone earning over £150k will have a 5% tax cut.

The 100k figure is Milibands figure, not the figure from the Gov, or HMRC. The opposition to the top tax rate cut was emotional, not based in mathematics. Even the Spectator acknowledged it wasn't true. The 100k figure ignores the effects such as the changes to personal allowances and the 40% tax bracket. The bottom line is HMRC have stated the changes to the top tax rate bring in more money than the previous ones.

Reply 14

Original post by zippyRN

really despite the loss of personal allowances at that level of income and that income tax rate changes for higher only effects earnings over the threshold level

Why does someone earning £150k+ a year "need" a personal allowance?

Reply 15

Tactical Nuclear Penguin

Original post by OU Student

Why does someone earning £150k+ a year "need" a personal allowance?

They don't, I believe the maximum you can earn before your PA is £0 is £118,880 for the 2013/14 tax year.

Reply 16

pol pot noodles

19

Original post by OU Student

So, can we not afford to pay people benefits; but can give higher earners a tax cut?

The high band tax cut didn't cost anything because the increase didn't raise anything in the first place. Labour only put it up in the first place (in their last months of office after 13 years at 40%) to provoke this sort of reaction from clueless people like yourself when the Tories inevitable reduced it (to 45%, still higher than it was during most of Labour's reign). It was a spiteful scorched earth tactic by Labour, nothing more.

Reply 17

AnonymousPenguin

Original post by OU Student

So, can we not afford to pay people benefits; but can give higher earners a tax cut?

You really need to look at the figures in the budget. That tax hardly raised anything (less than 2 billion), whereas the benefit budget is in excess of 200 billion (pensions of about 60 billion included). There's simply no way of ever balancing the budget without cutting benefits or a very large part of the NHS (130 billion). Realistically, on a European level, the benefits are relatively generous and health spending is lagging.

Having said that, I don't understand why the government increased tuition fees, which apparently only saved less than a billion. Moreover, the new mortgage guarantees by the government - someone must be high in the treasury.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 18