Give them vouchers instead of benefit money?

It would be extremely foolish for two unemployed people to have a child. The child and parents are all going to have a very poor quality of life.

That would be fine arguement had the previous administration been running a balanced budget before the crisis.

However it was breaking the EU guidance of 3% of GDP.

Square that one.

Governments don't always run a balanced budget, especially when we're in times of strong economic growth (as we were before the recession).

As long as the budget is balanced in the long-run, i.e. over a 7 year business cycle, then it doesn't really matter. And if the recession hadn't hit, we would have been able to balance the budget quite comfortably.

Not a good idea not very realistic either.
There should just be a limit to how much benefit you are allowed or a certain amount of years and they should cut it off. There is no excuse to not have a job within 5 years.
That story about that stupid woman who never had a job and used her money to spend on a boob job really pissed me off

Just because governments often don't do the right thing doesn't mean they are right. I don't expect you'll be coming to the coalisions defence when they do things that other governments do if it is seen as the wrong thing to do.

They didn't balance the budget over a 7 year cycle ('00-'07 let alone '03-'10).

How could we have been able to balance the budget comfortably? Browns budgets (ie when he was still Chancellor) for '07-'08 and '08 to '09 didn't balance, let alone balance over the cycle.

What you are saying is 'if there hadn't been a bust the budget would have balanced' even though thats hardly balancing over a cycle and you have no evidence for it balancng even if you ignore that.

Why do you think this? I grew up in a benefit claimant family, my parents did work till I was about 5 but I was too young to remember before that and we had a reasonable quality of life, no holidays abroad and no expensive games consoles or electronics but the worst we had was we couldnt afford to decorate house or buy brand name foods, it was lucky my dad was a excellent cook and could make something out of nothing as they say.

It was also lucky my dad was good at fixing electronics so any luxuries we had like tv were often off a tip or from a friend and repaired, so a £200 tv would be fixed for £20-£30 and lasted us a few years, same for vcr's and even my Commodore 64.

And we had amazing holidays to the beach in a chalet from social work, I loved it and if I had the cash now would buy the chalet, sadly it was damaged beyond repair in a storm one year.

I really don't understand the mentality that your parents must have had... Surely every parent wants to provide the best possible quality of life for their children? Fair enough, you got by OK but if you were your parents wouldn't you have worked bloody hard so that you could have holidays abroad, games consoles, a nicely decorated house, branded foods, and a new TV? I'm not saying you didn't have a good childhood and I'm sure you'll say that you didn't need those things to have a good time but if I was a parent I would work hard so that my children could have all of those things regardless of whether or not they are actually 'needed'.

I don't mean to insult your parents or anything I'm just making a point for debates sake.

I love how people on here are simplifying it so much - "If they don't like it, they can just get off benefits", and that we should stigmatise being on benefits for everyone. Wow, I envy your lives if everything is so simple. The stigma of living on benefits is bad enough as it is, when coupled with the stigma of having two parents who are very ill and cannot work because of this, so you want to add more stigma on? All I can say is that I hope the thread starter never becomes a politician.

I really don't understand the mentality that your parents must have had... Surely every parent wants to provide the best possible quality of life for their children? Fair enough, you got by OK but if you were your parents wouldn't you have worked bloody hard so that you could have holidays abroad, games consoles, a nicely decorated house, branded foods, and a new TV? I'm not saying you didn't have a good childhood and I'm sure you'll say that you didn't need those things to have a good time but if I was a parent I would work hard so that my children could have all of those things regardless of whether or not they are actually 'needed'.

I don't mean to insult your parents or anything I'm just making a point for debates sake.

Why do you think this? I grew up in a benefit claimant family, my parents did work till I was about 5 but I was too young to remember before that and we had a reasonable quality of life, no holidays abroad and no expensive games consoles or electronics but the worst we had was we couldnt afford to decorate house or buy brand name foods, it was lucky my dad was a excellent cook and could make something out of nothing as they say.

It was also lucky my dad was good at fixing electronics so any luxuries we had like tv were often off a tip or from a friend and repaired, so a £200 tv would be fixed for £20-£30 and lasted us a few years, same for vcr's and even my Commodore 64.

And we had amazing holidays to the beach in a chalet from social work, I loved it and if I had the cash now would buy the chalet, sadly it was damaged beyond repair in a storm one year.

How do you know they didnt work hard? as it happened my mum did a lot of voluntary work at a local handicapped school but kept getting turned down for full time positions, they just used her to be honest considering they hired a college leaver with no experience who called the kids retards often and was a vile piece of work.

And my dad who was unable to work as he would of died even doing many basic things ran his own charity helpline and did a lot of admin and saved many thousands of lives.

Why should my parents buy those things? they are hugely superficial, I have noticed many 18-25 year olds these days basically with no respect for money and often other people bar their friends who think they arent luxuries anymore but essentials.

I wouldnt of wanted to go abroad anyway, at most I would rather have gone to the holidays I did go on but have more disposable income.

I will revise my idea to say that 1 child conceived whilst on benefits is acceptable and should be counted as normal.

"working hard" does not guarantee you any of those things, or even make obtaining them significantly more likely

and seriously, branded foods? branded foods. how i would have loved to be able to have branded foods as a child nahhhhht.

As for your point about young people having no respect for money... What do you mean by 'respect for money'? Money is just a means of trading work for products/services, it has no material value in itself. If you don't spend your money, its a waste, you've effectively traded your work for useless paper... I don't think that young people think that luxuries are essentials, but I think that most young people agree that they would rather have luxuries than useless paper in the bank... About young people not having respect for people outside of their own friendship group - how can you possible respect or disrespect someone that you see in the street and don't even know? I don't understand what you mean? If you mean things like playing loud music at night in a residential area, not standing on a bus to allow an elderly woman to sit or something similar, then yes I totally agree with you but I think its a minority of 18 - 25 year olds who are like this even though the percentage is probably higher than people in other age groups so don't generalise. (I'm sure older generations were like this too at the same age?)

This is the same debate I was in yesterday... "Does working harder equal better pay". I said that it does and I still stand by that now...

oh thank heavens
finally i know what is normal
what ever would i have done without you