At last some sense coming back...
2 April 2013
...into welfare with the latest reforms.
Of course the 'left' are furious, absurdly so. They love the idea of people having to be on benefits, it suits them for people to be locked into poverty . They are happy to foment class warfare, to create divisions and envy. They want people to feel downtrodden, they want to encourage a 'them and us' society. Without class warfare, without an underclass, the left are simply pointless and irrelevant.
But what they hate most is that these welfare reforms are actually popular. The British people are not as foolish as the left think they are.
Last year benefits rose three times faster than wages. Indeed while most people in jobs, even those in the public sector, have had to suffer real terms wages cuts for several years, benefits have carried on rising. This is wrong and unfair. The 1% limit on benefit rises is supported by most people (a 10% lead in favour according to YouGov.
More importantly we have seen thousands of people move back into work and off benefits in advance of the reforms and that can only be a good thing.
There is nothing at all compassionate about handing out higher and higher benefits while driving the economy into collapse. Control of the welfare budget and getting people off benefits and into work is central to revitalising our economy. These reforms are a start to that process even though, initially, the cost is higher.
- yep its certainly changed a lot,more people in hardship evan those working and midle class are struggerling.
- It is awfully sporting of you Barry to admit that you cannot allow benefits to increase while you are driving the economy into collapse. Why you did not instead settle upon increasing benefits and ensuring that the economy was driven back into growth I know not, but I am sure you have your reasons.
It seems that the answer may lie in the statement, "getting people off benefits and into work is central to revitalising our economy." as this sets the cart before the horse. For nothing in the recent reforms alters the fact that a great many of those in receipt of benefits are actually in work.
But, in any case the proof is before us: All that is necessary to achieve full employment is to instil and encourage greed at the top. Rather like placing all the wealth at one end of a see-saw raises the less well off to new heights.
Not, of course, that placing all of the blame and all of the onus on the poor end of the see-saw raises the wealthy up and out of their responsibility...oh no, we should never look at things that way. - Only a fool can think that higher benefits can ruin an economy already crippled by debt and high public spending.
There is nothing healthy about people in work getting benefits. It just damages the wages market to the detriment of the lower paid.
The focus must be on getting the economy back to health and not your left wing envy and spite. It is those who you resent so much on whom the low paid/benefit claimant ultimately depends.
As always with left wingers your priorities are totally wrong and economically ignorant. - So, I'm spot on then.
(I will graciously accept that you first sentence was written in haste.)
You may stick to your "Trickle-Down" mantra Barry. It's not as if that has ever been found wanting down the ages.
"Will future tax cuts reach struggling working households?"
" Summary...
All political parties today say they want to help working people on low to middle incomes who struggle to make ends meet. Under the last government, in terms of direct financial support, this was achieved mainly through in-work tax credits. Today, the emphasis is shifting in favour of cutting taxes in ways that have the objective of helping low earners. Tax cuts, however, will not, in large part, reach low to middle income working households under the government’s flagship welfare reform Universal Credit (UC) as UC is calculated on the basis of net income, meaning that any tax cut that boosts a household’s income also reduces their UC support. Put another way, any tax cut will give with one hand and take away immediately most of the gains with the other.
This briefing looks at how exactly tax cuts interact with Universal Credit and quantifies how little low to middle income working households will keep from a higher personal allowance or a 10p tax rate under UC. It also suggests a simple way in which the Government could ensure that the benefits of tax cuts do flow through to the pockets of the three million taxpayers who claim UC. Any party proposing tax cuts that does not adopt this or an equivalent policy cannot claim to be targeting low to middle income households by cutting taxes."
The full,pdf, report can be found here...
http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/will-future-tax-cuts-reach-struggling-working-hous/ - I have never mentioned trickle down Tom. What I do say is that an economy has to be run sensibly in a manner that encourages and helps businesses to grow, succeed and expand creating wealth. Overtaxing them and their potential customers, placing burdens of beaurocracy on them, attacking the successful - none of that helps build an economy. The poor will be helped by economic success, not by more and more benefits. The economy must come first or there is nothing to help people with.
- I have never mentioned:'overtaxing', 'burdens' or 'attacking'.
That you say, " The poor will be helped by economic success, not by more and more benefits."
Is no bar to setting benefits at a liveable level, nor does it lend reality to the quest to overburden and overtax the poor with this spare-room rubbish.
The policies of forcing people into work that does not exist and forcing people into housing stock that does not exist do not lend credence to your claim that this Government is aligned with reality.
You simply continue to Tar the poor with your own brush, by setting 'success' as being the mere accrual of money. Is your trust-funded front bench redolent of any real success? Are CEOs etc. that cosily set each other's remuneration levels, and thereby vastly increase their incomes, actually architects of unquestionable success?
It is yourself and your fellow travellers that are work-shy.
That one's wealth increases to a far greater extent than does that of the common labourer does not, I am afraid to say, mean that one works harder than or is more worthy than he who has less to bank at the week's end.
You, and some of your clients that you have spoken of, are the ones who cease to function when comfort kicks-in, and it is this that for you colours the character of the 'average' benefit claimant. It is s/he that has 'it' too good. "How dare they 'appear' to live as I do!"
It is still the neatest of tricks on which you rely...
That wonderful day when everybody works, everybody is paid and everybody is then able to spend and/or to save/invest.
And what is it that they are to spend their wages upon? Why, they shall spend on the very stuff made by their fellows.
Alas, is not the reality a little different?
Is it not the case that production follows demand?
Is not such demand futile if there exists no purchasing power, and how will there ever be purchasing power until work begins on satisfying the demand that is (as yet) impotent?
Your answer is...
-To privatise debt at high interest and publicise risk.
-The contrary (leftist?) argument is to publicise debt at low interest and privatise risk.
Both these methodologies allow the successful to flourish. The latter by dint of effort and risk, the former by continued sleight of hand and the abstraction of money from the poor directly to the already well-off. - Tom - of course you have never mentioned overtaxing, burdens or attacking, It seems to you that there can be no ceiling to the tax and other burdens that can be placed on business to pay for your benefit society.
That is the problem with people like you, it is all about more and more benefits and you totally ignore the need to generate the income and wealth to pay for them while also ensuring we have a healthy economy. Your priorities are all wrong.
You do not support the measures needed to generate the jobs and boost recovery and never have done so. If we are going to help the genuinely poor and deserving then we have to get more profitable businesses first because it is they ultimately that pay the bill. - barry,i am no left winger nor a right winger.but i do see both sides of the coin,if you want to go around blinkerd thats up to you.
- I have never seen anything posted from you Brian that is anything other than left wing....
- one does chuckle at you sometimes,as i said im niether left or a right winger.
- indeed brian is a right winger on some things like hunting and live exports, a bit like a tory shireperson.
- How do you explain the record jobless figures then Barry?
- howard,plese cut the right wing tory shire bit out please.
- Lesley - those out of work has fallen and we have record number of people in employment. Quite remarkable given the depths of the crisis Labour left us with.
Under Labour unemployment always goes up, not one single period of Labour government ended its term with unemployment lower than at the start.
That said, I have mentioned many times that the coalition has still not done enough to get people back to work and repair the economy. They need to do more for growth with faster and deeper cuts to the public sector and major supply side reforms allied to tax cuts.
Howard - there is nothing Tory about Brian, far from it. - Further to below - I have found some figures for you.
The total number of people in employment has rise by 600,000 since May 2010 to end 2012.
It is not all part-timers either, as some have claimed.
The total hours worked has increased from 905million in mid-2009 when it reach a recent low to 945million at the end of 2012 which is close to an all time high of 950million (mid 2008).
The average income of those in work has fallen though. From a peak of £512 pw to £470 pw now. this clearly gives one reason for this recession not impacting as badly on jobs as otherwise it might. People have been saved by their own common sense quite frequently by taking pay freezes and sometimes cuts. With people in work being impacted this way it is only right and proper that those on benefits, paid for by those in work, should also take some of the strain. - Barry, has it every occured to you that the majority of people hate being dependent on benefits? That many of them have paid their taxes before losing their jobs/ becoming infirm and would give anything to be in work. Some even feel so ashamed that they do not claim all they are entitled to. Please don't tar everyone with the same brush, why should they suffer because the minority abuse the system?
- Lesley, there are also many who hate being dependent on working 50 hours a week to make ends meet.
Tom, the only bar to setting benefits at a 'liveable' level is the fact that money does not grow on trees. Soaking the rich in old traditional style actually reduces tax revenues. Wouldn't it be lovely if there were enough money trees so that none of us had to work any more? - Lesley - this is not about punishing anyone. Do you think it is healthy to keep on increasing benefits while those in work see their pay reduced or frozen? What incentive would there be to find work?
Of course the majority out of work and on benefits do not want to be there but there is a very significant proportion who are happy to create a lifestyle from state benefits and those need to be kicked off into the real world.
More job creation and wealth creation is needed to enable those who want to get back into work do so and also for those doing so more reluctantly. I have said many times what needs to be done in that respect too.
With a more sustainable and prosperous economy we can afford better benefits for those who really deserve them and need the help. First we have to get that more prosperous economy and that is not easy with the massive burden of public spending, welfare being the biggest budget, holding it back. - yes barry it dose matter,how can the unemployed afford sky tv,fags and strong larger other wise.