Tuesday, 25 March 2008

Twat of the day (4)

A Conservative councillor is alleged to have called for "compulsory sterilisation of all those who have had a second child - or third, or whatever - while living off state benefits".

Idiot!

There is a much simpler and better solution to all this.

4 comments:

ScotsToryB said...

I seem to remember that child benefit was historically paid for the second and further children. I don't know when this was changed but a reversal to that may make a difference, no?

STB.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Child Benefit is still paid to an unlimited number of children. Capping it at the first three seems about right to me.

Unknown said...

Even better would be to replace it with a Child Tax Allowance for the parents.

That way responsible working adults would be able to afford more children, and irresponsible non-working parents would have to have fewer.

After all, in a rational world that is the way around you would want it - encourage responsible people rather than irresponsible.

Mark Wadsworth said...

W, in the long run, that approach has a lot of merit. However, given where we are, on balance, I prefer low-level non-means tested universal benefits as a first step. There are plenty of half-way houses; you could freeze the flat-rate Child Benefit and gradually introduce/increase Child Tax Allowances, for example.