XBrettKennyX wrote:
Saved me the bother of explaining it.
Child benefit is one small part of the ridiculous benefits that people get simply on account of having kids.
You and Coach don't know what you are talking about re child benefit.
It was first introduced as the Family Allowance after WWII when the Welfare State was created based on Beverage's recommendations. One of the main reasons it was introduced was to ensure money was paid to the mother to ensure the father didn't get his hands on it and spend it down the pub (still as good a reason today as back then). The other main reason was to try and make sure children were not raised in poverty. The reason it is a universal benefit (so well off people get it as well as the less well off) with no means testing was also down to Beverage who thought
all benefits should be universal as means testing
always introduces a very high marginal tax rate for those who earn just enough to lose the entire benefit.
Now no doubt the pair of you think child benefit and perhaps other benefits should not exist at all but if you do that is because not only do you not understand child benefit you don't understand the concept of the Welfare State either. It is not, as the Daily mail would have you believe, designed to be some sort of spongers paradise but something we
all contribute to and will
all benefit from at different stages in our lives. This is also why Beverage wanted any benefits available to be free from means testing. The logic being if you receive a benefit, such as child benefit, it should not decrease or vanish once get a job that earns X amount because if it did then why bother getting a job that hits you with a stupendous rate of marginal tax? This idea is based on the key fact that the Welfare Sate is something everyone
takes out of as well as pays into throughout their lives. It gives you a stake in the system because it is not as you seem to believe something you alone pay for just for the benefit of others. You too will benefit from it at some stage (if the Tories do not succeed in wrecking it completely). Maybe not via child benefit if you do not have kids but through the NHS or help if unemployed etc.
What the Welfare State is not supposed to be is a means tested safety net. No doubt that alternative appeals to the greedy and selfish "I am all right jack" brigade but if they only thought about it for a minute they would realise they are part of the system (in a beneficial way at some point) as much as anyone else.
So what the government is doing by including child benefit in the proposed benefits cap is completely undermining the principles under which it, as part of the Welfare State, was conceived. Less well off people are gong to lose it while a family on a joint income of £80K will keep it. You could not get further away from what Beverage envisaged if you tried.
As to child benefit being a benefit at all in that why pay people for having kids, it is there to help prevent child poverty (which goes out of the window with the benefits cap) and also to enable people to afford to have kids (a good thing with an ageing population). The fact well off people get it is because as I said, they are also part of the Welfare State and so are getting a little bit back for their contributions as is only right and proper.
It is a triumph of right wing propaganda that people get so incensed about benefits and benefit fraud when by the governments own figures it (benefit fraud) is exactly 1/10th of the amount of money lost to uncollected taxes (£1.5bn compared to £15bn per year). That is tax actually owed to the tax man but not collected, not tax legally avoided due to clever tax lawyers.
