Rachel Reeves of the UK Labour government.
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Rachel Reeves planning to raise taxes and cut spending in October budget.
“Rachel Reeves is planning to raise taxes, cut spending and get tough on benefits in October’s budget …
“She announced last month that she was scrapping winter fuel payments for most pensioners, shelving plans for social care reform and axing road, rail and hospital investment …
“Among the changes Reeves is believed to be considering [is] … rejecting pressure to scrap the two-child benefit cap …”
“Among the changes Reeves is believed to be considering [is] … rejecting pressure to scrap the two-child benefit cap …”
ReplyDeleteGood. As someone who is childless, I fail to see why (hypothetically) I should pay for someone else to have kids.
If you want more than 2 kids, I suggest you get the calculator out and speak to your husband (if you have one) and crunch some numbers to see if you can afford it.
Or, if that's too much to ask think a bit more carefully before having unprotected sex than can end in a pregnancy and life.
Probably a bit much to expect people to take responsibility for their poor decision making and actions though.
If you don't cause a bit of pain and stop them at 2, where does it end 3, 4, 5? Many millions have worked all their lives with little to show for it. Some have never had a job and their children planned for every few years will ensure they never will.
Whether married single or whatever if you want more than 2 kids ......just remember there's a calculator on your phone - use it. It's will be the best contraception you will ever use.
First policy was to rob and endanger the seniors. A Friend of Israel is a friend indeed.
ReplyDeleteNah. First policy was to murder them in the care homes - then rob them.
DeleteA little money paid in every week/month for the good of everyone a glorified whip round really to feed children less fortunate than people like you who will probably want those same children to pay for your pension in a few years again a glorified whip round ! Do you work in the tech industry? but oh the irony! and you know where to put your calculator!
ReplyDelete“As someone who is childless, I fail to see why (hypothetically) I should pay for someone else to have kids.”
ReplyDeleteWith respect, you’re entirely missing the point.
NO KIDS choose their mother and, or their father.
NO KIDS choose, or deserve, to lack decent winter coats - to lack regular dental and sight checkups - to live in a house with dampness and mould - to depend on unpredictable rations from food banks.
Whether this type of situation arises because the kids’ mother and/or father are ignorant, lazy, bad, wrong, selfish, self-entitled, feckless, irresponsible, spendthrift (insert your favoured adjective here)… entirely misses the point.
The two-child benefits cap punishes blameless CHILDREN.
CHILDREN who did not choose their parents; who were not responsible for their parents’ choices, however reprehensible they may be.
Impose a child benefit cap on the low-income parents with more than 2 kids and you punish those kids; kids who have already been punished by life and circumstance through no fault of their own.
Is it galling that sometimes — (although the majority of the taxes we pay go to fund things we probably approve of like firemen, doctors, parks, streetlights, pavements) — a percentage of our taxes assist individuals of whose choices or lifestyles we very much DON’T approve?
Absolutely.
It sucks.
We pay taxes for costly medical treatments for professional boxers who punch each other, by choice, into oblivion.
We pay taxes for costly medical treatments for people who choose to put their lives at risk by driving at 120 mph on their motorway, then crash and kill other motorists or pedestrians.
We pay taxes to incarcerate, nourish, keep healthy, and even educate, cold-blooded murderers and rapists, sometimes for decades, in prisons that are at least intended to be safe, clean, and warm.
We pay our taxes to remove the litter, repair the vandalised bus shelters, and replace the torn-down street signs and broken street lamps, in places whose adult residents repeatedly destroy the public environment out of ignorance, boredom or malice.
Because that is what civilised societies do; civilised societies take care of the children, the elderly, the sick, the homeless, and yes — even the lazy people, the greedy people, the bad people, the criminals, the antisocial thugs the prisoners, the rapists, even the worst serial killers.
Civilised societies guarantee and ensure that whoever you are — be you ever so rich, or ever so poor, ever so good, or ever so bad — you WILL have a humane standard of living, with proper nutrition, civilised shelter, civilised level of schooling, dental and vision care, proper clothing, sufficient heating, excellent medical care, etc. etc.
All world religions teach it, and it is also obvious that when we intentionally or unintentionally degrade other people (whoever they are), we degrade ourselves.
When other people are dehumanised, for example through poverty or poor living conditions, you and I are dehumanised.
When other people are damaged, I am damaged and you are damaged.
The alternative to paying our taxes to help everyone in need, regardless of their moral and ethical failings — to say that we will only permit the taxes we pay to be used to assist those fellow citizens of whose moral & ethical choices we approve — would quickly turn our shared public environment into a dangerous slum, in which crime and social problems rise precipitously, and no one feels safe or comfortable.
But again, I come back to the primary point, which is that punishing the children to express disapproval of the parent(s) is to be profoundly unjust to those kids who did NOT choose to be malnourished or poorly clothed, and who did NOT choose their parents.
Sometimes, there is no good solution, only a least bad one.
The least bad option is for the state to do everything it possibly can to prevent any child from suffering malnourishment or poor housing or inadequate clothing or missed dental and vision care or lack of a warm winter coat.