Tuesday 8 January 2013

It's Quite Simple, Harker: I Don't Want To Pay For You To Have Kids...

At a time of austerity, there was little sympathy for those who could be called better off, and polls showed that 85% of voters were in favour. I have five kids myself, and when I wrote that £43k is not a lot of money when you have a lot of mouths to feed, it's fair to say that I didn't get a lot of love in return.
...no, not just you personally (though I don't think we need more of you, frankly, but there's always the slim chance the kids will turn out not to be race-hustling socialists with enormous chips on their shoulders).

I don't want to pay - via tax - huge sums in child benefit to large families wherever they are and whatever they do. Simples!

And I don't want to pay for small ones either. Like this one:
I'm one of the people that will be affected by the child benefit cuts, because I earn more than £50,000 a year. I know this might sound like a large salary on its own but that is without context, and that is what this argument is missing – context. I'm a single mother and I work full-time, meaning that I am reliant on childcare. My son has Asperger's syndrome and getting him the care he needs is costly; little support is available via the NHS. In order to achieve that salary I have to live in one of the most expensive areas of the country and therefore pay a significantly high rent (buying a house is an unachievable dream).
You see, she just has to live in a nice area in London. And I just have to be taxed to pay for it.

No more. The money tap's being turned off. It's about bloody time.

24 comments:

Bill said...

I don't want to buy their breakfasts either

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20936420

Why can't parents give their own brats breakfast? My parents gave me breakfast & I give it to my brats.

Why does the state want to do everything for everyone?

Anonymous said...

Hear hear, I earn £28,500,why should I pay extra tax to support families on £50,000, live within your means.

Anonymous said...

Strange that people think that because Child Benefit is to be reduced that their own tax bills will also be reduced.

They won't, I guarantee it.

Bucko said...

"My son has Asperger's syndrome"

I bet he doesn't. I really bet he doesn't.

The Filthy Engineer said...

On that money should save for three years and buy a two bedroom flat. Iknow because my daughter did it on less.

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX My son has Asperger's syndrome XX

Oh, don't they fucking ALWAYS!?

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX My son has Asperger's syndrome XX

Easy enough to cure the bastard, cut down on the Apreragus!

MTG said...

@ Mine Furor
"Easy enough to cure the bastard, cut down on the Apreragus!" (Yeees, I can just about manage a quarter smirk.)

Nietzsche, Satie, Einstein, Mahler and Jung had Asperger's Syndrome, Führer. Their enormous contributions to the well being of others also sets them apart from the likes of you.

Fahrenheit211 said...

I wonder how many of these so called 'aspergers' cases are nothing of the sort and are simply down to bad parenting? I'm not saying that Aspergers and other higher functioning autistic conditions don't exist, I'm only questioning the number of diagnoses of this condition. Are there really the large number of aspie children out there? I doubt it.

After all, such a diagnosis brings with it, extra welfare benefits and access to various other goodies such as special education provision and transport to schools. Also a child with an Aspie condition can be used as an excuse to get things like Motorbility etc.

Jim said...

@Farenheit211: too right. I personally know a couple who have a child who was diagnosed with Aspergers. As such they qualified for a Motability car for him. But the wife couldn't drive, so as the husband went to work before school hours the social (ie the rest of us) then had to pay for a taxi to take the kid to school every day and collect him afterwards, as they lived in a small village some miles from the school in town. While the motability car sat on the driveway. Absolutely true story, the family live in a house in my village and know my parents well.

Fahrenheit211 said...

Jim, I can well believe it.

On the subject of Harker, I seem to recall that he is some sort of lefty race baiter? I wonder if he has spent time being supported by the taxpayer? After all most race baiters seem to be (provided that they are ethnic race baiters of course)

Twenty_Rothmans said...

Harker - five children. Easily done with the salary of a poor journalist working for a loss-making newspaper.

Nicole Harris - sorry you got a defective unit love, that's why couples make bringing up a child - any child - that much easier. What happens if you lose your job?

I don't want to pay for these people to breed. I don't want their children to be born in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Fahrenheit211

You hit the nail on the head. Even the author of DSM-IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) has pointed out, on the publication of DSM-V, that the 'pathologising' of normal behaviours has been exacerbated by not only the money-grubbing of the psychiatrists/psychologists/pharmaceutical industry but by the parents - for monetary gain.

Oh and £50000 as a single parent (not including all those benefits) and still struggling? Why not involve the father? Or is it the case that 'daddy' has been forceably excluded, with the help of Social Services, the 'Family Court and the Police? So maybe 'Aspergers' is as a result of the son having no male role model at home or school (since we 'Icky' men aren't to be trusted there either). Unintended consequences?

Anonymous said...

Fair play to Mr Harker if he's actually there as a father to those kids. He's a minority of his particular minority.

Ancient + Tattered Airman said...

Hands up all those who failed to see that it HAD to be from a report in the Grumbling Grauniad?

Really?

Paul said...

Fahrenheit211 : 'I wonder how many of these so called 'aspergers' cases are nothing of the sort'.

It's a bit like everyone who has a bit of a sniffle now has The Flu; It's more dramatic than a cold.

selsey.steve said...

I went to school far too many years ago for me to want to remember but a couple of things do come to mind.
No-one had Aspergers or ADHD or any other alphabetical soup of letters.
If you contravened the school rules you had your arse tanned, a swift Six Of The Best.
No-one in my school had asthma. Not one kid out of a couple of hundred.
I wonder why?

JuliaM said...

"I don't want to buy their breakfasts either"

GAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!

"Strange that people think that because Child Benefit is to be reduced that their own tax bills will also be reduced."

It almost certainly won't but that's not something I'm counting on anyway.

It might go to something that does benefit me, or it might not. *shrugs*

At least I won't be paying for Harker's spawn...

"Oh, don't they fucking ALWAYS!?"

Quite!

JuliaM said...

"Nietzsche, Satie, Einstein, Mahler and Jung had Asperger's Syndrome, Führer. "

Errr, no, MTG. It's been postulated (by those with an agenda) that they did.

Not really the same thing, is it?

"Are there really the large number of aspie children out there? I doubt it."

Me too. See also: ADHD.

"Fair play to Mr Harker if he's actually there as a father to those kids. He's a minority of his particular minority."

Sadly true.

MTG said...

Shame on you for failing to realise many diagnoses are speculative! And were it not for speculation 'thingy' would have multiple meanings.

Go directly to Old Gadget Street; do not pass go.

Anonymous said...

"Hear hear, I earn £28,500,why should I pay extra tax to support families on £50,000, live within your means."
Actually the people on £50K p.a. probably are net tax payers.
All we are doing is making them receieve less from the Government.
I.e. become greater net tax payers.
An easier way to do this would be raise the higher rate of income tax by a small fraction.
It would be so much simpler.
It would obviously not be good
for people who earn over £50k without children but they are losers anyway.

Anonymous said...

Not really a problem.
Take-out a pension, or increase the contribs to same. Arrange to set-up your own service company, based somewhere else and pay little tax....and it is not as if those on £50,000.01 get no child benefit it is just that it is reduced incrementally and stops at £60,000.00....but it will, unless they have opted-out, be paid BUT will be claimed back by HMRC.
There is already a cosy child benefit exclusion avoidance industry springing up. And opting out is not the best way either, since any NI contributions dependent on child benefit end as well....if you are paid in excess of 50K and pay 40%...you really need an accountant to explain the facts of life...there are many routes to lowering that to 25% or less...

Anonymous said...

The fairest way would have been to say "in 9 months time, no child benefit will be paid to anybody for a child born after that date", and leave the rest as is.

I do not see why the state has the right to change the rules of the game whilst playing the game.

As it is, you and I are still paying for other people's children anyway (you're not paying for my own though).

It is also the same as stealing (or taxing as it is more commonly known) an extra £2000 a year (or whatever the child benefit amounts to). Funny how that is not mentioned much.

Anonymous said...

State benefits: You gotta love 'em.
They effectively pay me some 70 quid a month to save money for retirement...only they call it tax relief on contributions. Not to mention other minor benefits as other tax reliefs. And my children mean another benefit.
You can get a whole rake of benefits even if you're working....and they only get bigger if you earn more....then your pension "benefit" is much higher.
Never mind the immigrants or unemployed....the real winners in the benefit "state" are those with enough money to be able to afford being a benefit high earner.