In all honesty, I've never been wealthy, but taking literally half of someone's income always seemed unreasonable. Seems like if you earned it (or got payed it) you should get to keep at least half and a bit and that would be fair.
The idea that the rich have all earned their wealth does not have a huge amount of evidence to support it.
Did you not see the parenthetical part? That was to cover that not all wealth is earned. But how exactly would you go around assessing how well someone has earned something, what is the level by which no one could possibly have earned what they received?
Obviously people I think should earn more do not, and people I think deserve less do not, if there is a fix for that, if there is even a consensus that could be reached, I don't have it. But working with what we have, as a general rule I feel 49% and below is the range that is fair.
People seem perfectly happy to judge and go after the undeserving poor. If we can means test every aspect of a poor persons life, invade their homes and count their children and make them jump through hoops I am sure we can discriminate the idle rich and find policy just for them.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
They can 'think of the children' before they have them. Plus it is not a stop on tax credits and welfare for children, just limiting it to 2 ie the replacement rate, after that if you want extra children taxpayers will not fund it
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Can Mr Nabavi confirm though:- has he just confirmed he took measures to minimise his tax bill before the 50p rate was reduced? Did he really have the brass neck to criticise the Labour government for creating a huge deficit, while simultaneously exploiting loopholes with his personal finances that made the deficit bigger?
No I didn't, for the extremely good reason that I don't earn enough to be affected.
Nabavi in 'relative poverty' shocker
My father always advised 'act dumb and plead poverty'. No doubt it was good advice, but I never managed to follow it.
Can Mr Nabavi confirm though:- has he just confirmed he took measures to minimise his tax bill before the 50p rate was reduced? Did he really have the brass neck to criticise the Labour government for creating a huge deficit, while simultaneously exploiting loopholes with his personal finances that made the deficit bigger?
No I didn't, for the extremely good reason that I don't earn enough to be affected.
Nabavi in 'relative poverty' shocker
My father always advised 'act dumb and plead poverty'. No doubt it was good advice, but I never managed to follow it.
You've done both tonight. The old man would be proud.
In all honesty, I've never been wealthy, but taking literally half of someone's income always seemed unreasonable. Seems like if you earned it (or got payed it) you should get to keep at least half and a bit and that would be fair.
The idea that the rich have all earned their wealth does not have a huge amount of evidence to support it.
Did you not see the parenthetical part? That was to cover that not all wealth is earned. But how exactly would you go around assessing how well someone has earned something, what is the level by which no one could possibly have earned what they received?
Obviously people I think should earn more do not, and people I think deserve less do not, if there is a fix for that, if there is even a consensus that could be reached, I don't have it. But working with what we have, as a general rule I feel 49% and below is the range that is fair.
People seem perfectly happy to judge and go after the undeserving poor. If we can means test every aspect of a poor persons life, invade their homes and count their children and make them jump through hoops I am sure we can discriminate the idle rich and find policy just for them.
Don't we find policy for them by taxing them more because they can afford it and that's how we 'go after them'? And we're all just arguing about what the best level of that is, since I don't see anyone arguing for a flat tax rate?
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Well the idea is it changes behavior...
I'm not disagreeing with you, it's just that I see families like this all the time and I'm not sure changing behaviour is as simple as making them poorer. As I say, I don't have any answers, but it will be the poorest that suffer.
I reject you point. At best it is sophistry. At worst it's a fig leaf to cover the rich aggressively pursuing their self interest.
Who are these 'rich'? Not me.
Your poverty is legendary. Dickensian.
That's as may be. But my views on the 50% tax rate are not motivated by self-interest. It was an excessively high rate, objectively. In fact 45% is still too high, when you factor in NI, although that perversely affects only PAYE income.
Can Mr Nabavi confirm though:- has he just confirmed he took measures to minimise his tax bill before the 50p rate was reduced? Did he really have the brass neck to criticise the Labour government for creating a huge deficit, while simultaneously exploiting loopholes with his personal finances that made the deficit bigger?
No I didn't, for the extremely good reason that I don't earn enough to be affected.
Re-reading your original post, I can see now that you were talking hypothetically, so apologies!
Even so, my other point still stands. If we were talking about any other crime - say drink-driving, thieving from shops, or indeed fraudulently claiming benefits - I'm pretty sure your response would not be to throw your hands up and say "oh it's too difficult to stop these people doing these things, so let's just change the law and stop trying to catch them". Your response would probably be, rightly, that we have to enforce the laws better and that, as a point of principle, we don't give into people who deliberately try to dodge the rules. I don't see why tax rates should be the exception to that.
Can Mr Nabavi confirm though:- has he just confirmed he took measures to minimise his tax bill before the 50p rate was reduced? Did he really have the brass neck to criticise the Labour government for creating a huge deficit, while simultaneously exploiting loopholes with his personal finances that made the deficit bigger?
No I didn't, for the extremely good reason that I don't earn enough to be affected.
Nabavi in 'relative poverty' shocker
My father always advised 'act dumb and plead poverty'. No doubt it was good advice, but I never managed to follow it.
You've done both tonight. The old man would be proud.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Well the idea is it changes behavior...
I'm not disagreeing with you, it's just that I see families like this all the time and I'm not sure changing behaviour is as simple as making them poorer. As I say, I don't have any answers, but it will be the poorest that suffer.
Not if they plan and not if a reduction is seen in the number of children raised in benefit dependant households
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Well the idea is it changes behavior...
I'm not disagreeing with you, it's just that I see families like this all the time and I'm not sure changing behaviour is as simple as making them poorer. As I say, I don't have any answers, but it will be the poorest that suffer.
Not if they plan and not if a reduction is seen in the number of children raised in benefit dependant households
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Well the idea is it changes behavior...
I'm not disagreeing with you, it's just that I see families like this all the time and I'm not sure changing behaviour is as simple as making them poorer. As I say, I don't have any answers, but it will be the poorest that suffer.
I see such families frequently too. Forcing people to stand on their own two feet works a lot better for some than others. For some it is the kick up the backside that they need to get their life in order. For others it is the kick that moves them from scraping by to sleeping on doorways taking Spice or being trafficked.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Well the idea is it changes behavior...
I'm not disagreeing with you, it's just that I see families like this all the time and I'm not sure changing behaviour is as simple as making them poorer. As I say, I don't have any answers, but it will be the poorest that suffer.
Not if they plan and not if a reduction is seen in the number of children raised in benefit dependant households
Re-reading your original post, I can see now that you were talking hypothetically!
Even so, my other point still stands. If we were talking about any other crime - say drink-driving, thieving from shops, or indeed fraudulently claiming benefits - I'm pretty sure your response would not be to throw your hands up and say "oh it's too difficult to stop these people doing these things, so let's just change the law and stop trying to catch them". Your response would probably be, rightly, that we have to enforce the laws better and that, as a point of principle, we don't give into people who deliberately try to dodge the rules. I don't see why tax rates should be the exception to that.
No, your other point doesn't still stand. If we had a law which failed to achieve its objectives, indeed was counter-productive, we'd repeal or amend it. In any case, what's this stuff about 'crime'? Paying a perfectly legal pension contribution, or working a bit less, is not a crime. Nor, in the limit, is emigrating to a less rapacious tax regime, as many French people do.
Of course, you are right that the same problem applies to benefits. Leaving aside the (relatively rare) cases of benefit fraud, the much bigger problem is the perverse incentives in the benefit system. I don't for a moment blame people for adjusting their behaviour according to those perverse incentives; they don't make the rules. But government's role should be to set up sensible incentives, be it in benefits or in taxation.
It describes her perfectly though, shocking that she has more faces then the town clock. She will obey orders from HQ and then claim to be innocent and only doing her job.
That headline says far more about Scottish nationalists than it does about Ruth Davidson
I would say the "Were you raped?" form demonstrates the bankruptcy of the entire policy. Apart from humiliating would-be claimants, the degree of consent in the intercourse is irrelevant to the subsequent needs of the child. Either all third children need the benefit or none do. The policy simply becomes an official disapproval of conception and the birth of children, expressed through the benefits system. If the SNP oppose this miserable policy, I, for one, will cheer them on.
Many will make the conscious decision not to have more children because they can't afford to. They should receive support if they were raped, or had a child in a controlling relationship.
Only 55% of British births are planned, 16% unplanned and the remainder ambivalent.
If we are to have such a policy towards benefits, then we should significantly invest in contraception and abortion services.
How many people take up the option to get sterilised on the NHS once they have decided their family is complete? Anecdotally, it is by far the most common way of stopping further pregnancies once a couple feel their family is complete.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Well the idea is it changes behavior...
I'm not disagreeing with you, it's just that I see families like this all the time and I'm not sure changing behaviour is as simple as making them poorer. As I say, I don't have any answers, but it will be the poorest that suffer.
It's certainly not easy. Sadly it is not the case that people automatically become more responsible because they have kids. Some number do, I'm sure we all know people where that has been the case, and therefore people who would take steps not to have further kids if they could not afford it, knowing benefits would not follow. What can be done for the rest, recognising there is a limit to what everyone else can pay to accomodate others' choices? It's beyond the PB mind trust I suspect.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Of course, you are right that the same problem applies to benefits. Leaving aside the (relatively rare) cases of benefit fraud, the much bigger problem is the perverse incentives in the benefit system. I don't for a moment blame people for adjusting their behaviour according to those perverse incentives; they don't make the rules. But government's role should be to set up sensible incentives, be it in benefits or in taxation.
So, in your worldview, the "incentives" that get people on benefits to behave are to give them less money, yet the "incentives" that get rich potential tax-dodgers to behave are to give them MORE money?
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
Good idea. Nothing bad ever happens to children in care homes, or the Magdalen laundries, does it?
Of course, you are right that the same problem applies to benefits. Leaving aside the (relatively rare) cases of benefit fraud, the much bigger problem is the perverse incentives in the benefit system. I don't for a moment blame people for adjusting their behaviour according to those perverse incentives; they don't make the rules. But government's role should be to set up sensible incentives, be it in benefits or in taxation.
So, in your worldview, the "incentives" that get people on benefits to behave are to give them less money, yet the "incentives" that get rich potential tax-dodgers to behave are to give them MORE money?
No, in my consistent worldview, very high rates of marginal tax, or of withdrawal of benefits, are both examples of badly-designed policy. Do you disagree?
Of course, you are right that the same problem applies to benefits. Leaving aside the (relatively rare) cases of benefit fraud, the much bigger problem is the perverse incentives in the benefit system. I don't for a moment blame people for adjusting their behaviour according to those perverse incentives; they don't make the rules. But government's role should be to set up sensible incentives, be it in benefits or in taxation.
So, in your worldview, the "incentives" that get people on benefits to behave are to give them less money, yet the "incentives" that get rich potential tax-dodgers to behave are to give them MORE money?
Isn't it 'take less' money rather than 'give more'?
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Well the idea is it changes behavior...
I'm not disagreeing with you, it's just that I see families like this all the time and I'm not sure changing behaviour is as simple as making them poorer. As I say, I don't have any answers, but it will be the poorest that suffer.
I see such families frequently too. Forcing people to stand on their own two feet works a lot better for some than others. For some it is the kick up the backside that they need to get their life in order. For others it is the kick that moves them from scraping by to sleeping on doorways taking Spice or being trafficked.
Paying tax credits and child benefits up to 2 children but not more is hardly returning to Dickens
Can Mr Nabavi confirm though:- has he just confirmed he took measures to minimise his tax bill before the 50p rate was reduced? Did he really have the brass neck to criticise the Labour government for creating a huge deficit, while simultaneously exploiting loopholes with his personal finances that made the deficit bigger?
No I didn't, for the extremely good reason that I don't earn enough to be affected.
Nabavi in 'relative poverty' shocker
My father always advised 'act dumb and plead poverty'. No doubt it was good advice, but I never managed to follow it.
You've done both tonight. The old man would be proud.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Well the idea is it changes behavior...
I'm not disagreeing with you, it's just that I see families like this all the time and I'm not sure changing behaviour is as simple as making them poorer. As I say, I don't have any answers, but it will be the poorest that suffer.
Not if they plan and not if a reduction is seen in the number of children raised in benefit dependant households
Who is doing the planning?
The parents, if they know they will not get extra support for a third child but still take the risk anyway that is up to them
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
See, I actually think this is a better response than just cutting off benefits. It might be that parents are genuinely feckless and not responsible enough to take care of their kids, but that shouldn't mean that we then punish the kid for their parent's sins - not least because punishing them with a crappy childhood means they're more likely to grow into being just as feckless as their parents.
(Though it should be said, wouldn't taking many more kids of benefit-claimants into care, and all the bureaucracy that comes from it, probably end up costing more than the current system of Child Benefit?)
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
(Though it should be said, wouldn't taking many more kids of benefit-claimants into care, and all the bureaucracy that comes from it, probably end up costing more than the current system of Child Benefit?)
Almost certainly I would think, it is very expensive indeed, and just a few more children than expected can have major impacts on council budgeting.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
Good idea. Nothing bad ever happens to children in care homes, or the Magdalen laundries, does it?
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
Have you considered a career with United Airlines?
Of course, you are right that the same problem applies to benefits. Leaving aside the (relatively rare) cases of benefit fraud, the much bigger problem is the perverse incentives in the benefit system. I don't for a moment blame people for adjusting their behaviour according to those perverse incentives; they don't make the rules. But government's role should be to set up sensible incentives, be it in benefits or in taxation.
So, in your worldview, the "incentives" that get people on benefits to behave are to give them less money, yet the "incentives" that get rich potential tax-dodgers to behave are to give them MORE money?
In both cases financial incentives cause people to game the system. I certainly made maximum use of legal tax avoidance measures when i reached the peak rate where personal allowance clawback causes a 62% marginal tax rate.
One of the sad things that I see is that while dole bludgers get away with it, people in real hardship get screwed by the welfare clampdowns. Real shysters are good at working round the rules, while honest folk are much easier targets for sanctions.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
Really? That's the best you've got?
You were suggesting that kids be left to die. I think my suggestion is an improvement.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
See, I actually think this is a better response than just cutting off benefits. It might be that parents are genuinely feckless and not responsible enough to take care of their kids, but that shouldn't mean that we then punish the kid for their parent's sins - not least because punishing them with a crappy childhood means they're more likely to grow into being just as feckless as their parents.
(Though it should be said, wouldn't taking many more kids of benefit-claimants into care, and all the bureaucracy that comes from it, probably end up costing more than the current system of Child Benefit?)
Stopping tax credits after 2 children is not taking anymore into care, if you choose to have more you just have to be prepared to fund them and budget for them yourself
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
Have you considered a career with United Airlines?
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
Have you considered a career with United Airlines?
What do you think social services spend their lives doing with children at risk because of parental shortcomings?
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
See, I actually think this is a better response than just cutting off benefits. It might be that parents are genuinely feckless and not responsible enough to take care of their kids, but that shouldn't mean that we then punish the kid for their parent's sins - not least because punishing them with a crappy childhood means they're more likely to grow into being just as feckless as their parents.
(Though it should be said, wouldn't taking many more kids of benefit-claimants into care, and all the bureaucracy that comes from it, probably end up costing more than the current system of Child Benefit?)
Stopping tax credits after 2 children is not taking anymore into care, if you choose to have more you just have to be prepared to fund them and budget for them yourself
If someone has more children than they can afford, then they are likely to come to the attention of social services, and thereby the care system.
One thing that encourages me in life is regression to the mean. I have seen some very normal people come out of very abnormal homes.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
Really? That's the best you've got?
You were suggesting that kids be left to die. I think my suggestion is an improvement.
What's the cost of taking the kid into care, and not just the financial cost?
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
Really? That's the best you've got?
You were suggesting that kids be left to die. I think my suggestion is an improvement.
What's the cost of taking the kid into care, and not just the financial cost?
Have you considered a career with United Airlines?
What do you think social services spend their lives doing with children at risk because of parental shortcomings?
Sorry, I thought you were advocating removing her children because she was poor. Given the recent tenor of PB's comments, it was perhaps an easy mistake to make
It describes her perfectly though, shocking that she has more faces then the town clock. She will obey orders from HQ and then claim to be innocent and only doing her job.
That headline says far more about Scottish nationalists than it does about Ruth Davidson
I would say the "Were you raped?" form demonstrates the bankruptcy of the entire policy. Apart from humiliating would-be claimants, the degree of consent in the intercourse is irrelevant to the subsequent needs of the child. Either all third children need the benefit or none do. The policy simply becomes an official disapproval of conception and the birth of children, expressed through the benefits system. If the SNP oppose this miserable policy, I, for one, will cheer them on.
Many will make the conscious decision not to have more children because they can't afford to. They should receive support if they were raped, or had a child in a controlling relationship.
Only 55% of British births are planned, 16% unplanned and the remainder ambivalent.
If we are to have such a policy towards benefits, then we should significantly invest in contraception and abortion services.
Isn't contraception available for free? Would be interesting to see the breakdown for first/second/third+ child.
I think it is easy to underestimate how chaotic and unplanned many Briton's lives are, and how little savings many have.
How much should we accomodate that? If people already have two kids, surely they need to learn to be less chaotic in at least one area? Some things are beyond everyone's control, but others are not.
The price of enforcing middle class values is likely to be some very poor children, in often chaotic homes. It may work out very much more expensive for society in the end
How about replacing the words 'middle class values' with basic responsible parenting? And do you really believe that the previous level of Child benefits are reaching the very children they are aimed at helping in some of those chaotic homes?
I forgot, PB is the place of 600 quid restaurant meals for 2, where you still have to complain about the quality of the food.
I cannot imagine any meal, except perhaps dolphin stuffed with caviar, being worth 600, so I'd think any such meal would disappoint, and therefore deserve complaint.
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
See, I actually think this is a better response than just cutting off benefits. It might be that parents are genuinely feckless and not responsible enough to take care of their kids, but that shouldn't mean that we then punish the kid for their parent's sins - not least because punishing them with a crappy childhood means they're more likely to grow into being just as feckless as their parents.
(Though it should be said, wouldn't taking many more kids of benefit-claimants into care, and all the bureaucracy that comes from it, probably end up costing more than the current system of Child Benefit?)
Stopping tax credits after 2 children is not taking anymore into care, if you choose to have more you just have to be prepared to fund them and budget for them yourself
If someone has more children than they can afford, then they are likely to come to the attention of social services, and thereby the care system.
One thing that encourages me in life is regression to the mean. I have seen some very normal people come out of very abnormal homes.
Well that is their decision by having more than they can afford, taxpayers should not have to pick up the tab, though I really doubt 2 lots of universal credit rather than 3 will really make that much difference
FWIW I think the Scottish Tories are about to pay a price for the WM imposed benefit changes.
FWIW I think that you are going to be very disappointed.
I think you're right on this. Most people have 2 kids, or if they do have 3+ can afford it "under their own steam" so to speak. This is the sort of policy that will get alot of 'quiet approval' with the opponents being relatively loud. There'll be no electoral price to pay methinks.
It means they have to prove that the child was born due to non - consensual intercourse, 8 page description of why the person was not jailed and so how do they prove otherwise. Shocking
Malcolm, did you look at the form? All the claimant has to do is say she is eligible. The details of why she may well be eligible are provided by the professional. Do you really think CB should be payable for all children? If you do fair enough. If not, I don't see an alternative to this. It seems highly compassionate to me.
David, Surely if it was reported to the police and investigated at the time then that should be more than enough.
Of course it would be. And the professional would confirm it. And that would be that. 18 years of taxpayers money. Easy.
In the grand scheme of things, how much are we talking about ? Remember we used to pay this before. We could afford it then and now , much richer, as we are told we are, we cannot afford it.
Do Sweden, Denmark, Norway have a problem like this ?
We still have a very serious deficit. What I find genuinely incredible is that the Coalition government and this one have taken £100bn out of the deficit and reduced the public sector headcount by 1m and we have barely noticed. Ridiculous squawks about the bedroom tax and now this. It has been astonishingly painless given where we were. Of course some things are starting to creak, notably social care, but it could have been so much worse.
Your would have a point if they hadn't cut top rate income tax. The rich look after their own. To hell with the rest.
The 45% top rate of income tax is still higher than it was throughout the Blair years
But much lower than it was for most of the Thatcher years.
Audi chooses Slovakia and Hungary rather than Germany to build it's new SUV range.
Emphasising that the integrity of the single market is more important to VW than the Brexit deal. They don't want to give Hungary in particular any reason to think leaving would be a good idea.
Audi chooses Slovakia and Hungary rather than Germany to build it's new SUV range.
Emphasising that the integrity of the single market is more important to VW than the Brexit deal. They don't want to give Hungary in particular any reason to think leaving would be a good idea.
Labour costs in the manufacturing industries of Slovakia and Hungary were an hourly 10.70 euros and 8.40 euros per worker respectively in 2016, compared with 26.10 euros in Britain and 33.40 euros in Germany, according to Germany's Federal Statistics Office.
Labour costs in the manufacturing industries of Slovakia and Hungary were an hourly 10.70 euros and 8.40 euros per worker respectively in 2016, compared with 26.10 euros in Britain and 33.40 euros in Germany, according to Germany's Federal Statistics Office.
Race to the Bottom.
Will high value-add factories in Hungary and Slovakia tend to push wages up or down? It's a race to the top.
Can Mr Nabavi confirm though:- has he just confirmed he took measures to minimise his tax bill before the 50p rate was reduced? Did he really have the brass neck to criticise the Labour government for creating a huge deficit, while simultaneously exploiting loopholes with his personal finances that made the deficit bigger?
No I didn't, for the extremely good reason that I don't earn enough to be affected.
Re-reading your original post, I can see now that you were talking hypothetically, so apologies!
Even so, my other point still stands. If we were talking about any other crime - say drink-driving, thieving from shops, or indeed fraudulently claiming benefits - I'm pretty sure your response would not be to throw your hands up and say "oh it's too difficult to stop these people doing these things, so let's just change the law and stop trying to catch them". Your response would probably be, rightly, that we have to enforce the laws better and that, as a point of principle, we don't give into people who deliberately try to dodge the rules. I don't see why tax rates should be the exception to that.
What crime? I've avoided a fair bit of tax by reducing the hours I work. It's not why I did it but it was noticable that a 10% reduction in hours worked lead to less of a drop in income than I was expecting. Some one on £100k might easily decide that the hassle required to get to £120k wasn't worth it for £6k extra take home. (figrures for ilustrative purposes only).
If more active methods are used, then there is still a world of difference between tax evasion (not paying what the law says you must) and tax avoidance (arrainging things so what the law says you must pay is as low as you can make it.) Almost all of us do the latter, in fact the government encourages us to do so by the way they write the rules.
My married, working class parents had three kids. The state paid out family allowance (as was) for each one. All three grew up to become taxpayers. Two also helped to create businesses that employ taxpaying people and pay corporation tax (the other one did too, but in New Zealand, so he doesn't count!). The state made an investment and has been well rewarded. That's the other side of the benefits story and the one we seldom hear.
My married, working class parents had three kids. The state paid out family allowance (as was) for each one. All three grew up to become taxpayers. Two also helped to create businesses that employ taxpaying people and pay corporation tax (the other one did too, but in New Zealand, so he doesn't count!). The state made an investment and has been well rewarded. That's the other side of the benefits story and the one we seldom hear.
Your parents were married ?!?
Some on PB have questioned that narrative in the past ....
My married, working class parents had three kids. The state paid out family allowance (as was) for each one. All three grew up to become taxpayers. Two also helped to create businesses that employ taxpaying people and pay corporation tax (the other one did too, but in New Zealand, so he doesn't count!). The state made an investment and has been well rewarded. That's the other side of the benefits story and the one we seldom hear.
Your parents were married ?!?
Some on PB have questioned that narrative in the past ....
I fitted smoke detectors in a council flat today. A young woman, age 22, with 4 children by various fathers. As a council property, it had hard wired detectors, but the current junkie boyfriend had pulled them off the ceiling when his late night activities set them off. My head says 2 kids for child benefit payments is a perfectly sensible policy. My heart, looking at the little 3 year old fella who was mesmerised by the fire engine says otherwise. I don't have any answers.
Luckily for her all existing children are still eligible.
I know, but someone like her after this policy won't be. "Won't someone think of the children?" Clearly someone needs to.
Junkie boyfriend? 4 kids at 22?
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
So what do we do? Let the kids die?
We take them off her.
See, I actually think this is a better response than just cutting off benefits. It might be that parents are genuinely feckless and not responsible enough to take care of their kids, but that shouldn't mean that we then punish the kid for their parent's sins - not least because punishing them with a crappy childhood means they're more likely to grow into being just as feckless as their parents.
(Though it should be said, wouldn't taking many more kids of benefit-claimants into care, and all the bureaucracy that comes from it, probably end up costing more than the current system of Child Benefit?)
Probably. The cost of foster care is well north of £30k, and £130k for residential care. Per annum. Outcomes for kids in residential care are pretty dreadful, in spite of the expense. Taking kids from parents is rightly a last resort; as a more general policy, it's ridiculous.
My married, working class parents had three kids. The state paid out family allowance (as was) for each one. All three grew up to become taxpayers. Two also helped to create businesses that employ taxpaying people and pay corporation tax (the other one did too, but in New Zealand, so he doesn't count!). The state made an investment and has been well rewarded. That's the other side of the benefits story and the one we seldom hear.
Well done to your parents, they've every right to be proud of themselves for a job well done.
A family of three children a few years ago would have received considerably less state help than a modern family of two children, thanks to Gordon Brown's largesse with various tax credits since about 2003. This is what the government are trying to roll back, to remove incentives for those on low incomes to have growing numbers of children supported by the State.
This policy as a whole should also include carrots of better access to new long term contraceptives as well as the sticks of fewer benefits for larger families. Better adoption services would also help.
My married, working class parents had three kids. The state paid out family allowance (as was) for each one. All three grew up to become taxpayers. Two also helped to create businesses that employ taxpaying people and pay corporation tax (the other one did too, but in New Zealand, so he doesn't count!). The state made an investment and has been well rewarded. That's the other side of the benefits story and the one we seldom hear.
Well done to your parents, they've every right to be proud of themselves for a job well done.
A family of three children a few years ago would have received considerably less state help than a modern family of two children, thanks to Gordon Brown's largesse with various tax credits since about 2003. This is what the government are trying to roll back, to remove incentives for those on low incomes to have growing numbers of children supported by the State.
This policy as a whole should also include carrots of better access to new long term contraceptives as well as the sticks of fewer benefits for larger families. Better adoption services would also help.
I am not sure that the state is more generous these days. I also got a completely free education up to the age of 21 and was actually paid a grant, while receiving housing benefit and being able to claim the Dole in the summer. Things are a lot more rigorous these days. But, I agree, in the end it does boil down the parents you get - I was very lucky in that respect too. Most kids are, to be fair. It's the ones that aren't that are going to be adversely affected by all the cuts to social security and public services that we have seen over recent years. And in the end that will come back to bite us all.
My married, working class parents had three kids. The state paid out family allowance (as was) for each one. All three grew up to become taxpayers. Two also helped to create businesses that employ taxpaying people and pay corporation tax (the other one did too, but in New Zealand, so he doesn't count!). The state made an investment and has been well rewarded. That's the other side of the benefits story and the one we seldom hear.
Well done to your parents, they've every right to be proud of themselves for a job well done.
A family of three children a few years ago would have received considerably less state help than a modern family of two children, thanks to Gordon Brown's largesse with various tax credits since about 2003. This is what the government are trying to roll back, to remove incentives for those on low incomes to have growing numbers of children supported by the State.
This policy as a whole should also include carrots of better access to new long term contraceptives as well as the sticks of fewer benefits for larger families. Better adoption services would also help.
I am not sure that the state is more generous these days. I also got a completely free education up to the age of 21 and was actually paid a grant, while receiving housing benefit and being able to claim the Dole in the summer. Things are a lot more rigorous these days. But, I agree, in the end it does boil down the parents you get - I was very lucky in that respect too. Most kids are, to be fair. It's the ones that aren't that are going to be adversely affected by all the cuts to social security and public services that we have seen over recent years. And in the end that will come back to bite us all.
Good point about higher education, the state is much less generous between 18-21 than they used to be when only 15% went to university.
While free money is always gratefully received by those on that end of it, Brown's problem was that he never had the money to hand out in the first place, it was all borrowed. Taxes rises and spending reallocation since 2010 has closed the fiscal gap somewhat, but if we are going to come close to balancing the books then real spending cuts are needed to welfare. A dose of inflation also helps, which we are finally starting to see even if it's driven mostly off the back of a currency devaluation.
My married, working class parents had three kids. The state paid out family allowance (as was) for each one. All three grew up to become taxpayers. Two also helped to create businesses that employ taxpaying people and pay corporation tax (the other one did too, but in New Zealand, so he doesn't count!). The state made an investment and has been well rewarded. That's the other side of the benefits story and the one we seldom hear.
Well done to your parents, they've every right to be proud of themselves for a job well done.
A family of three children a few years ago would have received considerably less state help than a modern family of two children, thanks to Gordon Brown's largesse with various tax credits since about 2003. This is what the government are trying to roll back, to remove incentives for those on low incomes to have growing numbers of children supported by the State.
This policy as a whole should also include carrots of better access to new long term contraceptives as well as the sticks of fewer benefits for larger families. Better adoption services would also help.
I am not sure that the state is more generous these days. I also got a completely free education up to the age of 21 and was actually paid a grant, while receiving housing benefit and being able to claim the Dole in the summer. Things are a lot more rigorous these days. But, I agree, in the end it does boil down the parents you get - I was very lucky in that respect too. Most kids are, to be fair. It's the ones that aren't that are going to be adversely affected by all the cuts to social security and public services that we have seen over recent years. And in the end that will come back to bite us all.
I'm not sure if it is sensible to look at this solely through the child benefit lens. The long term effects are potentially significant to the costs of the benefit system and other government costs if the families of more than two children become less common.
Child benefit, the headline. Tax credits, housing benefit, school places and education costs, NHS costs.
The long term effect is potentially across many sectors of future spending.
My married, working class parents had three kids. The state paid out family allowance (as was) for each one. All three grew up to become taxpayers. Two also helped to create businesses that employ taxpaying people and pay corporation tax (the other one did too, but in New Zealand, so he doesn't count!). The state made an investment and has been well rewarded. That's the other side of the benefits story and the one we seldom hear.
Well done to your parents, they've every right to be proud of themselves for a job well done.
A family of three children a few years ago would have received considerably less state help than a modern family of two children, thanks to Gordon Brown's largesse with various tax credits since about 2003. This is what the government are trying to roll back, to remove incentives for those on low incomes to have growing numbers of children supported by the State.
This policy as a whole should also include carrots of better access to new long term contraceptives as well as the sticks of fewer benefits for larger families. Better adoption services would also help.
I am not sure that the state is more generous these days. I also got a completely free education up to the age of 21 and was actually paid a grant, while receiving housing benefit and being able to claim the Dole in the summer. Things are a lot more rigorous these days. But, I agree, in the end it does boil down the parents you get - I was very lucky in that respect too. Most kids are, to be fair. It's the ones that aren't that are going to be adversely affected by all the cuts to social security and public services that we have seen over recent years. And in the end that will come back to bite us all.
Good point about higher education, the state is much less generous between 18-21 than they used to be when only 15% went to university.
While free money is always gratefully received by those on that end of it, Brown's problem was that he never had the money to hand out in the first place, it was all borrowed. Taxes rises and spending reallocation since 2010 has closed the fiscal gap somewhat, but if we are going to come close to balancing the books then real spending cuts are needed to welfare. A dose of inflation also helps, which we are finally starting to see even if it's driven mostly off the back of a currency devaluation.
Gordon Brown was paying off Tory debt. Leaving that to one side, there are many problems with tax credits, as you'd expect from what was originally a right wing policy. They are expensive, over-complex and create perverse incentives at the margins. Worst of all, they subsidise bad employers.
My married, working class parents had three kids. The state paid out family allowance (as was) for each one. All three grew up to become taxpayers. Two also helped to create businesses that employ taxpaying people and pay corporation tax (the other one did too, but in New Zealand, so he doesn't count!). The state made an investment and has been well rewarded. That's the other side of the benefits story and the one we seldom hear.
Well done to your parents, they've every right to be proud of themselves for a job well done.
A family of three children a few years ago would have received considerably less state help than a modern family of two children, thanks to Gordon Brown's largesse with various tax credits since about 2003. This is what the government are trying to roll back, to remove incentives for those on low incomes to have growing numbers of children supported by the State.
This policy as a whole should also include carrots of better access to new long term contraceptives as well as the sticks of fewer benefits for larger families. Better adoption services would also help.
I am not sure that the state is more generous these days. I also got a completely free education up to the age of 21 and was actually paid a grant, while receiving housing benefit and being able to claim the Dole in the summer. Things are a lot more rigorous these days. But, I agree, in the end it does boil down the parents you get - I was very lucky in that respect too. Most kids are, to be fair. It's the ones that aren't that are going to be adversely affected by all the cuts to social security and public services that we have seen over recent years. And in the end that will come back to bite us all.
The social engineering of this change to treatment of larger families may or may not be effective in altering behaviour. My impression is that it will affect some but not others, as there are some people who plan their lives intermittently and poorly. Large families are pretty evenly distributed across SE groups, but for those on the lowest incomes ChB makes up a bigger percentage of household income. A lot of the poorest will be single mothers, but also second generation immigrants. I suspect the latter are not going to get much sympathy from PB Tories.
Will it save money? probably in the short term in narrow criteria. In wider terms it may be much less successful as pushing up both the financial and social costs of the social consequences is very likely. A very high percentage of homeless, addicts, and criminals come out of the care system. Keeping children with their parents (even fairly feckless ones) is often money well spent.
On topic, sort of, the Guardian is reporting that the Republicans have just scraped home in a Congressional by-election, in a district they’ve normally held comfortably for around 20 years.
So Trump there until 2020 probably, after that..........
It means they have to prove that the child was born due to non - consensual intercourse, 8 page description of why the person was not jailed and so how do they prove otherwise. Shocking
Malcolm, did you look at the form? All the claimant has to do is say she is eligible. The details of why she may well be eligible are provided by the professional. Do you really think CB should be payable for all children? If you do fair enough. If not, I don't see an alternative to this. It seems highly compassionate to me.
David, Surely if it was reported to the police and investigated at the time then that should be more than enough.
Of course it would be. And the professional would confirm it. And that would be that. 18 years of taxpayers money. Easy.
In the grand scheme of things, how much are we talking about ? Remember we used to pay this before. We could afford it then and now , much richer, as we are told we are, we cannot afford it.
Do Sweden, Denmark, Norway have a problem like this ?
We still have a very serious deficit. What I find genuinely incredible is that the Coalition government and this one have taken £100bn out of the deficit and reduced the public sector headcount by 1m and we have barely noticed. Ridiculous squawks about the bedroom tax and now this. It has been astonishingly painless given where we were. Of course some things are starting to creak, notably social care, but it could have been so much worse.
Your would have a point if they hadn't cut top rate income tax. The rich look after their own. To hell with the rest.
The 45% top rate of income tax is still higher than it was throughout the Blair years
But much lower than it was for most of the Thatcher years.
Worth remembering on that point that Thatcher was never in favour of the 40% tax bracket. She wanted 50% but Lawson (think it was still him at this point) dug his heels in and insisted it needed to be lower, to show the old tax models had been decisively abandoned (bearing in mind in 1978 there was actually a 98% tax rate)!
So the irony of her admirers jibbing about the higher band is actually quite amusing.
The Syrian missiles seem to have had only a modest positive effect for Trump, which in view of the generally positive coverage suggests that disgruntled supporters are less easily regruntled than one might have thought.
The Syrian missiles seem to have had only a modest positive effect for Trump, which in view of the generally positive coverage suggests that disgruntled supporters are less easily regruntled than one might have thought.
Such bombings are usually popular in the short term, but that often shifts in the longer term. Getting embroiled further in Mid East wars is a pretty nailed on way of losing popular support. Even Putin seems to be suffering as a result.
My married, working class parents had three kids. The state paid out family allowance (as was) for each one. All three grew up to become taxpayers. Two also helped to create businesses that employ taxpaying people and pay corporation tax (the other one did too, but in New Zealand, so he doesn't count!). The state made an investment and has been well rewarded. That's the other side of the benefits story and the one we seldom hear.
Well done to your parents, they've every right to be proud of themselves for a job well done.
A family of three children a few years ago would have received considerably less state help than a modern family of two children, thanks to Gordon Brown's largesse with various tax credits since about 2003. This is what the government are trying to roll back, to remove incentives for those on low incomes to have growing numbers of children supported by the State.
This policy as a whole should also include carrots of better access to new long term contraceptives as well as the sticks of fewer benefits for larger families. Better adoption services would also help.
I am not sure that the state is more generous these days. I also got a completely free education up to the age of 21 and was actually paid a grant, while receiving housing benefit and being able to claim the Dole in the summer. Things are a lot more rigorous these days. But, I agree, in the end it does boil down the parents you get - I was very lucky in that respect too. Most kids are, to be fair. It's the ones that aren't that are going to be adversely affected by all the cuts to social security and public services that we have seen over recent years. And in the end that will come back to bite us all.
You got a free education up to 21, as did I and many on this forum, but a large majority of the country did not. If you are going to compare the situation then you have to think of the whole picture: the state was more generous to a much smaller group. Modern sixth-formers have more opportunities then we did, but the cost of taking them up is now also higher. In my own experience of guiding students through the complexities of UCAS most think the price is worth paying. Of course they would prefer someone else to pay.
On topic... 20% chance of him going this year seems way, way too high. 2019 IMO should be most likely of the three years.
After the mid-terms it's possible Dems do very well and retake house and senate. I think it's a near certainty Trump is guilty of something impeachable and after a few months of proper investigation it will come out.
I am not sure that the state is more generous these days. I also got a completely free education up to the age of 21 and was actually paid a grant, while receiving housing benefit and being able to claim the Dole in the summer. Things are a lot more rigorous these days. But, I agree, in the end it does boil down the parents you get - I was very lucky in that respect too. Most kids are, to be fair. It's the ones that aren't that are going to be adversely affected by all the cuts to social security and public services that we have seen over recent years. And in the end that will come back to bite us all.
Good point about higher education, the state is much less generous between 18-21 than they used to be when only 15% went to university.
While free money is always gratefully received by those on that end of it, Brown's problem was that he never had the money to hand out in the first place, it was all borrowed. Taxes rises and spending reallocation since 2010 has closed the fiscal gap somewhat, but if we are going to come close to balancing the books then real spending cuts are needed to welfare. A dose of inflation also helps, which we are finally starting to see even if it's driven mostly off the back of a currency devaluation.
Gordon Brown was paying off Tory debt. Leaving that to one side, there are many problems with tax credits, as you'd expect from what was originally a right wing policy. They are expensive, over-complex and create perverse incentives at the margins. Worst of all, they subsidise bad employers.
From 2001 Gordon was spending more money than he was receiving, the whole tax credits largesse to his favoured client groups was paid for with borrowed money. Worst of all, the marginal withdrawal rates made it almost impossible for someone stuck in the benefits and credits trap to get a job, often earning less by working than they could make as Blair and Brown's supplicants. Those were the perverse incentives, which to their credit the government since 2010 have tried their best to undo without creating genuine hardship. We now have a record low unemployment rate, with more kids then ever seeing their parents get out of bed in the morning and going to work.
Gordon Brown was paying off Tory debt. Leaving that to one side, there are many problems with tax credits, as you'd expect from what was originally a right wing policy. They are expensive, over-complex and create perverse incentives at the margins. Worst of all, they subsidise bad employers.
He did from 1997-2000, when the debt/GDP ratio hit a postwar low of 30%. This was also substantially boosted by a number of one-off large payments e.g. The sale of digital frequencies.
After that - when he had abandoned Clarke's deliberately tight spending policy - he went on a spree. Despite substantial economic growth, by the start of 2007 the debt/GDP ratio has risen back to 40%. That did not include PFI or the debts of various quangoes, e.g. Network Rail (I don't think it included pension liabilities either but I'm not sure on that point) so it was probably worse than it looked.Since then of course it has rocketed.
This is why when a real crisis hit he was left with very little room to manoeuvre economically or politically. The situation was worse because he had kidded himself (a) that the good times would never end and (b) that they existed solely because of his genius. So he ended up failing on more or less every level. Enoch Powell would have held him up as proof of his famous dictum.
PS - I entirely agree re tax credits. Worth remembering that they were originally a Conservative idea to make businesses on small margins more profitable by allowing employers to keep wages low.
Just catching up on last night's interesting thread on tax rates and benefit entitlements.
Taking the Cowley Tech historian's long view, it seems that in modern Britain Labour only wins when it accepts that people, rather than the state, are entitled to keep the majority of their individual wealth and income. Brown took this too far in trying to create a client state and was widely rejected at the ballot box. The Danny555s of this world must surely see that the difference between not taking someone else's money and not giving large amounts of someone else's money to a third person in return for little but residence is the difference between power and Labour's decline...
Well done to your parents, they've every right to be proud of themselves for a job well done.
A family of three children a few years ago would have received considerably less state help than a modern family of two children, thanks to Gordon Brown's largesse with various tax credits since about 2003. This is what the government are trying to roll back, to remove incentives for those on low incomes to have growing numbers of children supported by the State.
This policy as a whole should also include carrots of better access to new long term contraceptives as well as the sticks of fewer benefits for larger families. Better adoption services would also help.
I am not sure that the state is more generous these days. I also got a completely free education up to the age of 21 and was actually paid a grant, while receiving housing benefit and being able to claim the Dole in the summer. Things are a lot more rigorous these days. But, I agree, in the end it does boil down the parents you get - I was very lucky in that respect too. Most kids are, to be fair. It's the ones that aren't that are going to be adversely affected by all the cuts to social security and public services that we have seen over recent years. And in the end that will come back to bite us all.
The social engineering of this change to treatment of larger families may or may not be effective in altering behaviour. My impression is that it will affect some but not others, as there are some people who plan their lives intermittently and poorly. Large families are pretty evenly distributed across SE groups, but for those on the lowest incomes ChB makes up a bigger percentage of household income. A lot of the poorest will be single mothers, but also second generation immigrants. I suspect the latter are not going to get much sympathy from PB Tories.
Will it save money? probably in the short term in narrow criteria. In wider terms it may be much less successful as pushing up both the financial and social costs of the social consequences is very likely. A very high percentage of homeless, addicts, and criminals come out of the care system. Keeping children with their parents (even fairly feckless ones) is often money well spent.
What's with the unpleasant insinuation that PB Tories are borderline racists? Totally uncalled for.
I look forward to @Topping furiously condemning you and all your kind
On topic... 20% chance of him going this year seems way, way too high. 2019 IMO should be most likely of the three years.
After the mid-terms it's possible Dems do very well and retake house and senate. I think it's a near certainty Trump is guilty of something impeachable and after a few months of proper investigation it will come out.
Take the house, yes. The Americans probably voted the Republicans in in the first place because they thought Hilary would win and a Republcian Congress would keep her from doing anything utterly cretinous. Now a Dem house must look attractive.
The Senate looks more difficult as there are only 9 republican seats in play against 23 democratic seats. So they would need to take over half the seats the republicans are defending to win a majority (assuming they don't lose any themselves, which actually is also a bold assumption).
In the very unlikely event they managed that, to actually convict Trump of anything they would need 67 votes. That would mean c.15 Republican senators rebelling. As we saw over Clinton, even on an open and shut case it is very difficult to get senators to break ranks. Indeed, over Clinton while Democrats in the House voted to impeach, five Republicans in the senate voted to acquit on the basis it had all dragged on too long and got silly.
I just don't see how Trump can be removed outside the fantasies of his more virulent haters. There isn't a meaningful pathway before the 2020 elections when there seems a real chance he won't stand anyway.
The Syrian missiles seem to have had only a modest positive effect for Trump, which in view of the generally positive coverage suggests that disgruntled supporters are less easily regruntled than one might have thought.
Such bombings are usually popular in the short term, but that often shifts in the longer term. Getting embroiled further in Mid East wars is a pretty nailed on way of losing popular support. Even Putin seems to be suffering as a result.
Gordon Brown was paying off Tory debt. Leaving that to one side, there are many problems with tax credits, as you'd expect from what was originally a right wing policy. They are expensive, over-complex and create perverse incentives at the margins. Worst of all, they subsidise bad employers.
He did from 1997-2000, when the debt/GDP ratio hit a postwar low of 30%. This was also substantially boosted by a number of one-off large payments e.g. The sale of digital frequencies.
After that - when he had abandoned Clarke's deliberately tight spending policy - he went on a spree. Despite substantial economic growth, by the start of 2007 the debt/GDP ratio has risen back to 40%. That did not include PFI or the debts of various quangoes, e.g. Network Rail (I don't think it included pension liabilities either but I'm not sure on that point) so it was probably worse than it looked.Since then of course it has rocketed.
This is why when a real crisis hit he was left with very little room to manoeuvre economically or politically. The situation was worse because he had kidded himself (a) that the good times would never end and (b) that they existed solely because of his genius. So he ended up failing on more or less every level. Enoch Powell would have held him up as proof of his famous dictum.
PS - I entirely agree re tax credits. Worth remembering that they were originally a Conservative idea to make businesses on small margins more profitable by allowing employers to keep wages low.
A rare occasion of inaccurate facts from you.
Debt/GDP hit a low of 24.2% in 1991q1.
The lowest it was under Gordon Brown was 27.9% in 2002q1.
Gordon Brown was paying off Tory debt. Leaving that to one side, there are many problems with tax credits, as you'd expect from what was originally a right wing policy. They are expensive, over-complex and create perverse incentives at the margins. Worst of all, they subsidise bad employers.
He did from 1997-2000, when the debt/GDP ratio hit a postwar low of 30%. This was also substantially boosted by a number of one-off large payments e.g. The sale of digital frequencies.
After that - when he had abandoned Clarke's deliberately tight spending policy - he went on a spree. Despite substantial economic growth, by the start of 2007 the debt/GDP ratio has risen back to 40%. That did not include PFI or the debts of various quangoes, e.g. Network Rail (I don't think it included pension liabilities either but I'm not sure on that point) so it was probably worse than it looked.Since then of course it has rocketed.
This is why when a real crisis hit he was left with very little room to manoeuvre economically or politically. The situation was worse because he had kidded himself (a) that the good times would never end and (b) that they existed solely because of his genius. So he ended up failing on more or less every level. Enoch Powell would have held him up as proof of his famous dictum.
PS - I entirely agree re tax credits. Worth remembering that they were originally a Conservative idea to make businesses on small margins more profitable by allowing employers to keep wages low.
A rare occasion of inaccurate facts from you.
Debt/GDP hit a low of 24.2% in 1991q1.
The lowest it was under Gordon Brown was 27.9% in 2002q1.
His figures appear to be wrong. On checking my reference books the national debt in 1991 was £198 billion while national income was £433 billion. That' seems a figure of 45.7% or rather more than double what it is from the ONS. That table is also puzzling as it cites no sources and gives no data set.
And actually I am usually right, although I will admit I do make mistakes, but I mostly can't be bothered to argue with people who subscribe to Reagan's infamous position of heart and best intentions rather than facts and evidence. I am too busy to deal with such people.
Your riposte is incidentally especially ironic as I got heavily told off on here the other day for daring to point out that the ONS figures made a mockery of Juncker and Mellor's claim that non-EU immigration was higher than EU immigration and I was also wrongly called a leaver by two especially dense posters as a result.
It means they have to prove that the child was born due to non - consensual intercourse, 8 page description of why the person was not jailed and so how do they prove otherwise. Shocking
Malcolm, did you look at the form? All the claimant has to do is say she is eligible. The details of why she may well be eligible are provided by the professional. Do you really think CB should be payable for all children? If you do fair enough. If not, I don't see an alternative to this. It seems highly compassionate to me.
David, Surely if it was reported to the police and investigated at the time then that should be more than enough.
Of course it would be. And the professional would confirm it. And that would be that. 18 years of taxpayers money. Easy.
In the grand scheme of things, how much are we talking about ? Remember we used to pay this before. We could afford it then and now , much richer, as we are told we are, we cannot afford it.
Do Sweden, Denmark, Norway have a problem like this ?
We still have a very serious deficit. What I find genuinely incredible is that the Coalition government and this one have taken £100bn out of the deficit and reduced the public sector headcount by 1m and we have barely noticed. Ridiculous squawks about the bedroom tax and now this. It has been astonishingly painless given where we were. Of course some things are starting to creak, notably social care, but it could have been so much worse.
Your would have a point if they hadn't cut top rate income tax. The rich look after their own. To hell with the rest.
The 45% top rate of income tax is still higher than it was throughout the Blair years
But much lower than it was for most of the Thatcher years.
Worth remembering on that point that Thatcher was never in favour of the 40% tax bracket. She wanted 50% but Lawson (think it was still him at this point) dug his heels in and insisted it needed to be lower, to show the old tax models had been decisively abandoned (bearing in mind in 1978 there was actually a 98% tax rate)!
So the irony of her admirers jibbing about the higher band is actually quite amusing.
The Top rate of Income Tax was actually 83% .An Investment Income Surcharge of 15% was levied on Unearned Income above £1500.
Comments
Even so, my other point still stands. If we were talking about any other crime - say drink-driving, thieving from shops, or indeed fraudulently claiming benefits - I'm pretty sure your response would not be to throw your hands up and say "oh it's too difficult to stop these people doing these things, so let's just change the law and stop trying to catch them". Your response would probably be, rightly, that we have to enforce the laws better and that, as a point of principle, we don't give into people who deliberately try to dodge the rules. I don't see why tax rates should be the exception to that.
Benefits don't seem to be helping much.
Of course, you are right that the same problem applies to benefits. Leaving aside the (relatively rare) cases of benefit fraud, the much bigger problem is the perverse incentives in the benefit system. I don't for a moment blame people for adjusting their behaviour according to those perverse incentives; they don't make the rules. But government's role should be to set up sensible incentives, be it in benefits or in taxation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/douglas-carswell-very-keen-on-free-movement-of-labour-after-brexit_uk_58ecd156e4b0c89f9121647a?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec1_lnk2&pLid=1996038625_uk
(Though it should be said, wouldn't taking many more kids of benefit-claimants into care, and all the bureaucracy that comes from it, probably end up costing more than the current system of Child Benefit?)
One of the sad things that I see is that while dole bludgers get away with it, people in real hardship get screwed by the welfare clampdowns. Real shysters are good at working round the rules, while honest folk are much easier targets for sanctions.
One thing that encourages me in life is regression to the mean. I have seen some very normal people come out of very abnormal homes.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/is-there-room-in-this-party-for-a-probrexit-liberal-53905.html
Audi chooses Slovakia and Hungary rather than Germany to build it's new SUV range.
Edinburgh Evening News - Frank Ross: Check the name on ballot paper when you vote . .
Race to the Bottom.
NB: The UK is not winning the race.
If more active methods are used, then there is still a world of difference between tax evasion (not paying what the law says you must) and tax avoidance (arrainging things so what the law says you must pay is as low as you can make it.) Almost all of us do the latter, in fact the government encourages us to do so by the way they write the rules.
Some on PB have questioned that narrative in the past ....
Taking kids from parents is rightly a last resort; as a more general policy, it's ridiculous.
A family of three children a few years ago would have received considerably less state help than a modern family of two children, thanks to Gordon Brown's largesse with various tax credits since about 2003. This is what the government are trying to roll back, to remove incentives for those on low incomes to have growing numbers of children supported by the State.
This policy as a whole should also include carrots of better access to new long term contraceptives as well as the sticks of fewer benefits for larger families. Better adoption services would also help.
While free money is always gratefully received by those on that end of it, Brown's problem was that he never had the money to hand out in the first place, it was all borrowed. Taxes rises and spending reallocation since 2010 has closed the fiscal gap somewhat, but if we are going to come close to balancing the books then real spending cuts are needed to welfare. A dose of inflation also helps, which we are finally starting to see even if it's driven mostly off the back of a currency devaluation.
Child benefit, the headline.
Tax credits, housing benefit, school places and education costs, NHS costs.
The long term effect is potentially across many sectors of future spending.
Will it save money? probably in the short term in narrow criteria. In wider terms it may be much less successful as pushing up both the financial and social costs of the social consequences is very likely. A very high percentage of homeless, addicts, and criminals come out of the care system. Keeping children with their parents (even fairly feckless ones) is often money well spent.
So Trump there until 2020 probably, after that..........
So the irony of her admirers jibbing about the higher band is actually quite amusing.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
Modern sixth-formers have more opportunities then we did, but the cost of taking them up is now also higher. In my own experience of guiding students through the complexities of UCAS most think the price is worth paying. Of course they would prefer someone else to pay.
2019 IMO should be most likely of the three years.
After the mid-terms it's possible Dems do very well and retake house and senate. I think it's a near certainty Trump is guilty of something impeachable and after a few months of proper investigation it will come out.
After that - when he had abandoned Clarke's deliberately tight spending policy - he went on a spree. Despite substantial economic growth, by the start of 2007 the debt/GDP ratio has risen back to 40%. That did not include PFI or the debts of various quangoes, e.g. Network Rail (I don't think it included pension liabilities either but I'm not sure on that point) so it was probably worse than it looked.Since then of course it has rocketed.
This is why when a real crisis hit he was left with very little room to manoeuvre economically or politically. The situation was worse because he had kidded himself (a) that the good times would never end and (b) that they existed solely because of his genius. So he ended up failing on more or less every level. Enoch Powell would have held him up as proof of his famous dictum.
PS - I entirely agree re tax credits. Worth remembering that they were originally a Conservative idea to make businesses on small margins more profitable by allowing employers to keep wages low.
Taking the Cowley Tech historian's long view, it seems that in modern Britain Labour only wins when it accepts that people, rather than the state, are entitled to keep the majority of their individual wealth and income. Brown took this too far in trying to create a client state and was widely rejected at the ballot box. The Danny555s of this world must surely see that the difference between not taking someone else's money and not giving large amounts of someone else's money to a third person in return for little but residence is the difference between power and Labour's decline...
I look forward to @Topping furiously condemning you and all your kind
The Senate looks more difficult as there are only 9 republican seats in play against 23 democratic seats. So they would need to take over half the seats the republicans are defending to win a majority (assuming they don't lose any themselves, which actually is also a bold assumption).
In the very unlikely event they managed that, to actually convict Trump of anything they would need 67 votes. That would mean c.15 Republican senators rebelling. As we saw over Clinton, even on an open and shut case it is very difficult to get senators to break ranks. Indeed, over Clinton while Democrats in the House voted to impeach, five Republicans in the senate voted to acquit on the basis it had all dragged on too long and got silly.
I just don't see how Trump can be removed outside the fantasies of his more virulent haters. There isn't a meaningful pathway before the 2020 elections when there seems a real chance he won't stand anyway.
Debt/GDP hit a low of 24.2% in 1991q1.
The lowest it was under Gordon Brown was 27.9% in 2002q1.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/timeseries/hf6x/pusf
And actually I am usually right, although I will
admit I do make mistakes, but I mostly can't be bothered to argue with people who subscribe to Reagan's infamous position of heart and best intentions rather than facts and evidence. I am too busy to deal with such people.
Your riposte is incidentally especially ironic as I got heavily told off on here the other day for daring to point out that the ONS figures made a mockery of Juncker and Mellor's claim that non-EU immigration was higher than EU immigration and I was also wrongly called a leaver by two especially dense posters as a result.