The turn out in last week's Fun Online Poll was 162. Multiple votes were allowed, so any measure that beat the 81-votes cut-off point deserves closer inspection:
Which of David Cameron's ill-informed and spiteful welfare reform proposals do you support?
1) Cap on Housing Benefit at £20,000 - 101 votes
2) Curbs on welfare payments for large families - 99 votes
3) Chuck higher earners out of council houses - 87 votes
4) Force claimants to do 'voluntary' work after two years - 80 votes
Benefit claimants to be forced to learn to read - 78 votes
Regional benefit levels - 73 votes
End Housing Benefit for under-25s - 63 votes
Incapacity Benefit claimants to 'take steps to improve their health' - 58 votes
5) None of the above - 34 votes
The problem is, that even where Cameron is right he is only half-right as he always misses the other half of the equation, for example:
1) Housing Benefit for private landlords is an awful waste of taxpayers' money, building social housing costs more or less nothing because the rents cover the running costs, so agreed on that - let's phase out Housing Benefit and spend the money on council housing instead. Cameron however wants to sell off the remaining council housing, knowing full well it will end up in the hands of private landlords who will then demand Housing Benefit as a risk free return on their 'investment'.
2) Agreed, it is silly that there is not a maximum number of children for which benefits can be claimed, but again, that is not how he meant it. The actual cost saving of capping it at (say) three children is minimal, what Cameron was doing was dog whistling for those died in the wool Tory voters who blame everything on 'single mothers'.
3) I violently disagree on chucking higher earners out of council housing, this is a symptom of just how engrained Home-Owner-Ism is in this country. Compare and contrast the following (please note the facts are exactly the same in each case, only one variable is changed. Any comments based on changing other variables will be ruled invalid):
a. Mr A, who snapped up his council house for a song a decade or two ago and has done well for himself since and earns a lot, maybe he sub-lets it, maybe he still lives there.
b. Mr B next done, for whatever reason didn't take advantage of right-to-buy, has continued paying the full rent demanded throughout, despite he has also done well for himself and earns a lot.
As between the two, is it not blindingly obvious that Mr A has received the far larger subsidy from the government and ultimately the taxpayer? The amount of money which Mr B will reimburse the taxpayer over his life is far, far greater than Mr A's modest contribution a decade or two ago. But the Homeys will solemnly declare that Mr A has invested wisely and taken a stake in society and deserves his unearned gains etc.
And how can Mr B be abusing the income tax payer? Mr B is the taxpayer! The extra income tax and NIC and other taxes he pays are (by definition) far more than what the average taxpayer pays, far in excess of the value of any notional subsidy he receives, and certainly far less than what any owner-occupier has received in subsidies over the past decade or two.
For sure, Mr B has received a subsidy compared to Mr C on the same income who rents privately - but this is because Mr C's landlord Mr D is receiving the highest subsidies of all.
4) The rest of the ideas are f-ing idiotic. You can't make people work who don't want to (it's cheaper to leave them in peace) and you certainly can't make people learn who don't want to (ditto), there are plenty of people who would really appreciate and benefit from English and maths lessons, why not offer it to them first?
Regional benefit levels is the most f-witted of all. Not only would the admin costs be enormous and would there be huge scope for fraud, but the real flaw is that this would have the equal and opposite effect of capping Housing Benefit! The war on under-25s is playing right into the YPP's hands, so we shouldn't really grumble about that.
5) Well done, you lot.
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So much to that tomfoolery.
This week's Fun Online Poll: do you take the Tory party's recent burblings about holding an In-Out Referendum on the EU in the slightest bit seriously?
Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.
Forbidden Bible Verses — Genesis 25:1-6
4 hours ago
12 comments:
3) I think you have Mr A and Mr B mixed up (they appear to do a dos-a-dos half way down the section).
B, oops, ta, well spotted, I have amended.
1. 'Regionalising' benefits. What he might mean (or he might not) is that there is a case for 'localising' benefits. In other words take it all away from central government.
2. I think what he is dog whistling about in 'getting high earners out of council houses' is that he thinks that the high earners renting council houses are being subsidised. In other word he views council housing as a safety net and that everyone 'should' buy their own home...
3. On so many levels I abhor the purchase discounts available to council house tenants. In any event the one thing leasing from the council gets you is security of tenure, which is most definitely not something you can enjoy with most amateur private landlords. By observation most of those see BtL as a 'capital appreciation and eventual exit' game, and the eventual purchaser is very rarely another BtL-er.
L,
1. He clearly meant paying lower benefits to people outside the South East.
2. A lot of people think they are being subsidised, I've had Homeys on this very blog earnestly trying to convince me, chatting about "below market rents" and "notional costs" but as these people fail to grasp that the same applies in spades to owner-occupiers in the absence of LVT, they clearly fail to grasp anything unless it serves their narrow blinkered view on a very narrow and actually totally unimportant issue.
3. Agreed.
"In other word he views council housing as a safety net and that everyone 'should' buy their own home..."
It's a general view these days that renting is a sort of purgatory that you have to pass through in order to enter the heaven of being a home-owner.
Re 'regionalising benefits'; yep. he probably does mean 'everyone in the SE is subsidising everyone else". However as you yourself have pointed out, there is an excellent case for 'localising benefits', based on the accommodation component being the bit that varies. Plus, IMHO, have 'benefits' localised might make them more accountable - 'of course' that would work best with LVT, but, hey....
"What he might mean (or he might not) is that there is a case for 'localising' benefits. In other words take it all away from central government."
I very much doubt it. Whitehall would, ideally, like to control everything.
"those died in the wool Tory voters who blame everything on 'single mothers'"
By which, of course, they mean "girls that have got themselves pregnant", not widows. Even unfortunate mothers abandoned by their husbands are seen as somehow morally suspect.
L, did I say that? My view is flat rate benefits everywhere in the country, that's adminsitratively simple and has other knock-on benefits. So a cap on HB is OK, but then paying claimants in SE higher dole is not only stupid but reverses the benefit of HB cap.
B, unless she's a Black Widow.
MW Whoa. Agreed on 'flat rate benefits' but you have pointed out that the cost of living ex accommodation is broadly level across the country. If that is so then surely total benefits (and I know I am sticky ground here with 'housing benefit') need to vary locally?
L, cash benefits paid to individuals have to be uniform around the country or else there is too much admin and faff, too much fraud and error.
Yes, housing costs vary, but (until we have enough council housing) it is better to have a cap or a maximum amount for Housing Benefit for private landlords. That means claimants in cheap areas get their rent paid more or less in full, and in expensive areas they only get half their rent paid or they have to choose somewhere smaller or in a cheaper area. That is administratively easy and more difficult to defraud than the present system or anything that David Cameron can think up.
Plus, instead of exacerbating rent differentials between areas, it would tend to level them out (which must be a good thing).
MW. I can see where you're coming from now. I think you might have a little difficulty getting that through the present shower though. Just a little caution as I would hate to see you disappointed....
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