Chris, a man of my own heart indeed.
Though I don't agree with everything you've said.
Child Benefit: In my opinion it, nor any other form of benefit should be paid out to people who are high earners. Benefits are there for those in need, and someone earning over £40K is not in need. Furthermore, I would restrict it to the first 2 children. This doesn't need to be applied retrospectively, but if they said for example that as of next April, any child born that is not the first or second, won't receive CB, then taxpayers won't be funding peoples life choices.
Look at the family in Derby, in the news this week because they've been firebombed. Put that tragedy to one side, the father was called Britain's biggest scrounger, with 17 kids all paid for by us. Apparently he did a TV show with Anne Widdecombe and she found him a job, but he never turned up. But there is no justification for high earners being paid taxpayers money, unless its simply the fact that they should get something back for all the tax they pay, but that's the other side of the coin, once spending is under control, we need to see a massive reduction in the tax burden.
Another big story of the week was the paedophiles in Rochdale. The victims were mainly in care, that's an oxymoron, they got anything but care. But reading some of the reports oer the weekend, the cost of the care is appalling. Two of the girls were meant to be in individual care, ie a care home to themselves, and yet the carers just let them do what they want. Sometimes they would walk out for days and weeks at a time, so what exactly were the cares doing? Well the private companies running these homes were charging the local authority nearly £300K per year for one girl, and £200K for another. That's almost 10 times what it costs to send a child to Eton......and the LA just handed the money over, just like that. Absolutely appalling, and no doubt the people responsible won't feel any sanctions.
As Chris said, when it comes to making cuts, councils just go for the easier option of redundancies, instead of controlling their spending.
Other things Cameron should do;
As I said I would like to see a program of tax cuts. I would start with slashing fuel duty, followed by VAT on domestic fuel. These tax cuts benefit everyone, not just earners, and would also have a positive impact on inflation.
He should insist on massive reform of the EU, so bureaucratic, inefficient and full of frauds. Even their own accountants refuse to sign off the books because they don't know where the moneys gone. Cameron should refuse to pay anymore until every single penny can be seen to be spent wisely. And that also includes keeping afloat bankrupt economies. Everyone knows Greece is going to default and end up out of the Euro, this has been dragging on for 2 years and will drag on a lot longer yet, which means that banks and industry, not to mention the public, are massively lacking confidence to spend, billions are being hoarded because they are scared of the collapse of the Euro. Cameron should force the farce to end, if Greece wants to go bankrupt, let them do it in isolation. It will be tough, but its going to happen, so the sooner it does, the sooner we can start recovering.
He should do what he sad he would, and sort out immigration, which has actually got worse. This needs serious addressing. For years Labour told us we needed immigration because the hundreds of thousands that came here were not claiming benefits, they are working. well now we have 2.5 million British NOT working, so get them to do the work and send the immigrants home.
He could apply the same rules to other industries that he applies to the banks. The banks get in trouble so they get bailed out with billions of taxpayers money. This doesn't add to our deficit because its done "off the books", by means of a loan, the intention being that at some point, the bank shares will be privatised and we taxpayers get our money back. So why not use that argument to build a couple of new nuclear plants, Thames estuary airport, High Speed broadband infrastructure, water movement infrastructure, etc, etc, and create jobs along the way.
Massive reform of all the Quangos, he said he was going to get rid off but hasn't.
In fact, given more time, I could come up with lots of things he could do to help the countries economy....but he's busy thinking about Lords reform and gay marriage to worry about something as trivial as the countries finances.
