Dedworth
19th July 2013, 12:39
The Government is seriously considering cutting the welfare budget still further because of the popularity of its £26,000-a-year cap which came into force this week.
An even-lower limit of £20,000 is being discussed, along with plans to restrict child benefit to two children and ending altogether housing benefit for the under-25s.
Despite the predictable, stage-managed, anguished howls of the BBC, the Guardianistas and the poverty industry, most voters believe welfare is far too generous, even after the latest reductions.
Many of you wonder how the Government decided to cap payments at £26,000 per household, which is considerably more than millions of people have to live on each year.
The figure is supposed to be based on the notional after-tax income of an average family. But plenty of readers have written to say that even with two breadwinners in their family, they don’t make anything like that amount.
No doubt the usual suspects will be screaming about the proposals to restrict child benefit to two offspring. But why should women expect to go on having babies they can’t afford to support?
Despite the new cap, it will still be possible for parents with ten children to claim up to £41,000 a year in handouts.
To put things in perspective, a salary of £41,000 is only fractionally below the threshold at which wage-earners are considered to be so ‘rich’ they must pay the higher 40 per cent rate of income tax. To take home £41,000, you’d have to earn £64,000 before tax.
There are plenty of examples of big families, in which no one has a job, demanding and receiving larger homes, paid for by taxpayers.
Yet why should working men and women have to pay taxes to support feckless individuals who haven’t worked a day in their lives and expect the rest of us to keep them in the manner to which they have become accustomed?
Welfare was designed as a temporary safety net, not a way of life. But Labour cynically expanded the system to provide well-remunerated employment for its supporters and create a vast client class of claimants who would repay their gratitude at the ballot box.
Some senior Labour figures now want welfare benefits enshrined in European law as a basic ‘human right’.
Of course, in a civilised society, welfare should be there for people who have genuinely fallen on hard times and can’t provide for themselves through no fault of their own.
It shouldn’t be an alternative lifestyle choice for those who can’t be bothered to get out of bed in the morning.
Many of those on the unemployment register say they would work if they could, but they’re better off claiming benefits. That’s the fault of those who designed the system.
But the answer is not to keep on doling out money the country can’t afford. It is to make work pay by cutting both benefits and taxes, so those who can only secure relatively lowly-paid jobs have an incentive to return to employment.
It’s not as if there aren’t jobs around. More than a million have been created in the private sector under this Government and waves of recent immigrants seem to have no trouble finding work.
People rightly get riled when they learn about immigrants living on benefits, like Rebecca who cooks for the ‘omelettes people’ and who was featured in this column on Tuesday after being put up by the BBC as cruel victim of the ‘savage cuts’.
hey also resent stories about immigrants receiving child benefit payments which they then send back to families who don’t even live in Britain. But, in truth, although these stories are major irritants, the biggest drain on the welfare budget are British citizens who have been brought up to believe that the State will provide everything from housing and health care to Special Brew and Sky television.
Much to the disgust of the Left, public tolerance with welfare excess has reached a tipping point.
We will continue to hear about the ‘cruelty’ of the cuts, the halt and the lame will be dragged across our BBC TV screens like modern-day Bob Cratchits. Political activists in wheelchairs will chain themselves to the railings for the benefit of the cameras, even though no one who is genuinely disabled is suffering any cuts in their income or support.
But their faux outrage has been proved to be a damp squib. The Tories should now feel emboldened to cut welfare further and faster. It’s a vote-winner, especially with older people who have played by the rules and paid taxes all their lives.
If Labour seriously think being forced to live on £26,000 a year after tax is a real hardship, then why aren’t they campaigning for lower taxes or proposing to raise the married couples’ pension to twenty-six grand?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2369513/Its-reckless-impose-cuts-feckless.html#ixzz2ZUT02sCl
Great article Mr Littlejohn I fully agree :xxgrinning--00xx3:
Who's against this ???? the BBC and of course the Labour Party - just as disgraceful as the benefit scroungers they support.
An even-lower limit of £20,000 is being discussed, along with plans to restrict child benefit to two children and ending altogether housing benefit for the under-25s.
Despite the predictable, stage-managed, anguished howls of the BBC, the Guardianistas and the poverty industry, most voters believe welfare is far too generous, even after the latest reductions.
Many of you wonder how the Government decided to cap payments at £26,000 per household, which is considerably more than millions of people have to live on each year.
The figure is supposed to be based on the notional after-tax income of an average family. But plenty of readers have written to say that even with two breadwinners in their family, they don’t make anything like that amount.
No doubt the usual suspects will be screaming about the proposals to restrict child benefit to two offspring. But why should women expect to go on having babies they can’t afford to support?
Despite the new cap, it will still be possible for parents with ten children to claim up to £41,000 a year in handouts.
To put things in perspective, a salary of £41,000 is only fractionally below the threshold at which wage-earners are considered to be so ‘rich’ they must pay the higher 40 per cent rate of income tax. To take home £41,000, you’d have to earn £64,000 before tax.
There are plenty of examples of big families, in which no one has a job, demanding and receiving larger homes, paid for by taxpayers.
Yet why should working men and women have to pay taxes to support feckless individuals who haven’t worked a day in their lives and expect the rest of us to keep them in the manner to which they have become accustomed?
Welfare was designed as a temporary safety net, not a way of life. But Labour cynically expanded the system to provide well-remunerated employment for its supporters and create a vast client class of claimants who would repay their gratitude at the ballot box.
Some senior Labour figures now want welfare benefits enshrined in European law as a basic ‘human right’.
Of course, in a civilised society, welfare should be there for people who have genuinely fallen on hard times and can’t provide for themselves through no fault of their own.
It shouldn’t be an alternative lifestyle choice for those who can’t be bothered to get out of bed in the morning.
Many of those on the unemployment register say they would work if they could, but they’re better off claiming benefits. That’s the fault of those who designed the system.
But the answer is not to keep on doling out money the country can’t afford. It is to make work pay by cutting both benefits and taxes, so those who can only secure relatively lowly-paid jobs have an incentive to return to employment.
It’s not as if there aren’t jobs around. More than a million have been created in the private sector under this Government and waves of recent immigrants seem to have no trouble finding work.
People rightly get riled when they learn about immigrants living on benefits, like Rebecca who cooks for the ‘omelettes people’ and who was featured in this column on Tuesday after being put up by the BBC as cruel victim of the ‘savage cuts’.
hey also resent stories about immigrants receiving child benefit payments which they then send back to families who don’t even live in Britain. But, in truth, although these stories are major irritants, the biggest drain on the welfare budget are British citizens who have been brought up to believe that the State will provide everything from housing and health care to Special Brew and Sky television.
Much to the disgust of the Left, public tolerance with welfare excess has reached a tipping point.
We will continue to hear about the ‘cruelty’ of the cuts, the halt and the lame will be dragged across our BBC TV screens like modern-day Bob Cratchits. Political activists in wheelchairs will chain themselves to the railings for the benefit of the cameras, even though no one who is genuinely disabled is suffering any cuts in their income or support.
But their faux outrage has been proved to be a damp squib. The Tories should now feel emboldened to cut welfare further and faster. It’s a vote-winner, especially with older people who have played by the rules and paid taxes all their lives.
If Labour seriously think being forced to live on £26,000 a year after tax is a real hardship, then why aren’t they campaigning for lower taxes or proposing to raise the married couples’ pension to twenty-six grand?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2369513/Its-reckless-impose-cuts-feckless.html#ixzz2ZUT02sCl
Great article Mr Littlejohn I fully agree :xxgrinning--00xx3:
Who's against this ???? the BBC and of course the Labour Party - just as disgraceful as the benefit scroungers they support.