If you could vote on the future of benefits, how would you vote?

[Chun Li]

I wonder if all these benefit bashers are as severe on those who dodge tax?

 

Why not ask them?

[fruitisbad]

To all the 'they're spwnding my taxes' brigade, you seem to be lumping all claimants into one. If someone has worked all their life, loses their job, the benefit money they are recieving is also their taxes so how can you justify them not spending it on what they want? They've put in so are entitled to it!

 

I know there is a problem with people seeing benefits as a lifestyle choice but the measures you are proposin seem too black or white in an issue that isn't so simple.

[upinwath]

As there are a lot of benefit related threads at the moment, I thought I would start a poll seeing how the masses would vote if there was a vote on the future of benefits.

 

Nice idea.

I voted to only pay if they were willing to work for their cash.

 

Loads of things out there that aren't done because there is n one to do those little jobs.

Start with delivering shopping to the disabled and pensioners.

[Conrod]

It's about time all handouts were stopped. I'm sick of all scroungers leeching off the British tax payer. Have you been down Hartshead (back of the Dove and Rainbow) where the sick place and Job Centre is? Absolute pondlife!

 

I'd have no objection to providing them with an unlimited provision of soap ... then they could get a wash, get a job and get a life!

I have to walk through them from work if I go for a stroll into town - and indeed the term 'pond life' does spring to mind. Many of the people I see simply do not seem worthy of state help.

[Cyclone]

Treating adults like children is unnaceptable. Being out of work is undignified enough without being forced to shop where the government tells you to on items chosen by the government. That's demeaning and discriminatory and humiliating.

 

It's no more discriminatory than only giving free money to the unemployed is discrimination against the employed.

The state feels that it has an obligation to support those who are out of work, nothing says that the support must come in the form of money, and there's no moral or ethical argument to say it should either.

[Cyclone]

That's balls though isn't it? Why should the unemployed be denied the right to eat out occasionally, have a drink when they want one, or go to the pictures. Being unemployed isn't a crime, and it shouldn't entail such a massive curtailment of peoples freedoms.

 

Being given money for entertainment isn't a right though nor something that the state feels it should do. It's a safety net to stop people starving or freezing, not a way of life that involves luxury items.

[Cyclone]

I don't know what the official definition of welfare is, or ever was. My best guess would be that it's supposed to support people unable to support themselves.

 

So far as I'm aware, it was never defined as being a just-above-starvation payment.

 

How would you define support as including enough free cash to drink, smoke and go to the cinema then? It must be a very broad definition of support.

[Cyclone]

I wonder if all these benefit bashers are as severe on those who dodge tax?

 

Those who evade tax are prosecuted, fined and jailed, as they should be.

[L00b]

I don't know what the official definition of welfare is, or ever was. My best guess would be that it's supposed to support people unable to support themselves.

 

So far as I'm aware, it was never defined as being a just-above-starvation payment.

How would you define support as including enough free cash to drink, smoke and go to the cinema then? It must be a very broad definition of support.

It's broad enough:

I think you've misunderstood what is required for a person to retain a stable mentality and be in any fit state to even look for work, let alone find any. Merely not starving or freezing to death, is not sufficient.

I queried Halibut about the same posts as you did, but have yet to see a reply.

[Conrod]

Treating adults like children is unnaceptable. Being out of work is undignified enough without being forced to shop where the government tells you to on items chosen by the government. That's demeaning and discriminatory and humiliating.

Nonsense. There are plenty of people out there - hordes of them - that are barely capable of making decisions to get themselves through life and would fare better if most decisions were made on their behalf.