Iain Duncan Smith has decided to end Disability Living Allowance in favour of the new Personal Independence Payment to cut 500,000 disabled claimants.
The cuts are aimed at reducing the heavy annual Disability Living Allowance tax bill by more than £2.24 billion a year in these times of austerity where every penny spent has to be justified.
Also the rate of increase in those claiming Disability Living Allowance has risen by 30% over the past couple of years so the tax burden cannot be allowed to extend any further can it?
Yes it can and why have we developed a national fixation with benefits cheats defrauding the system for what is comparatively small fry when compared to potential tax revenue that is deliberately being overlooked by governments in order to attract the super rich and investment banks and foreign businesses to British shores.
Goldman Sachs paid a fraction (£4.1 million) of it's £422.3 million UK tax bill and had £10 million written off last year's tax bill.
Add this to the top 1,000 richest persons in the UK whose combined wealth increased by £155 billion in the past three years and you have an idea of the numbers we are talking about here.
Then there are the tens of billions of pounds being pledged to prop up European banks and let us not forget the tens of billions we send in foreign aid every year to countries which are wealthier than our own.
So what if a fraction of those who are claiming Disability Living Allowance are fraudulent? It is to be expected and priced in by any decent society in order to ensure that the vulnerable are ring-fenced.
Many people are possibly making fraudulent claims because of the economic situation and thanks to a benefits system that is lacking in support in other areas.
The 'get of your backside and work you lazy sponger' is not applicable for many people who cannot find work, and cannot set up their own business or support their families.
If the options to provide for your family are, face extreme poverty or risk the weight of the law by making a fraudulent claim, then any decent man or woman would risk all in order to provide for their family…..especially when they are witnessing the political and financial elite get away with fraud on a daily basis.
David Cameron promised to end corruption yet he and his government are up to their necks in it, just look at Cameron's own links with News International.
And how exactly is the unemployed, aspiring entrepreneur supposed to get their small local business off the ground when banks are not lending?
And how can a small business compete with supermarkets who are extracting the wealth from towns and cities across the country with their diminished tax offering compared to the tax take from numerous successful small businesses?
Targeting those on disability benefits is not going to solve our economic crisis. Then when one considers the already traumatic tests that many disabled and sick people have to go through in order to claim what is rightfully theirs you realise that is bad enough. But then to question what constitutes a person's ability to work by imposing goal driven censuses (where turning down benefits gets you a bonus) we are delving into serious moral hazard.
A mere fractional taxation increase  of just 1,000 of the country's wealthiest citizens will pay for the proposed disability cuts.
How much money do the richest people really need to amass? And how much does their combined wealth remaining in their possession benefit the country at large?
'Ah, but the rich might leave the UK and tax their wealth with them' is the oldest argument against taxing the rich but I would say tax them at 50% if they try to take their wealth abroad.
Protectionism has become a dirty world in the 21st century globalist economic infrastructure yet I say it is essential if we in the UK are all in this together.
Iain Duncan Smith
If you made tens of millions/billions in the good times in Britain then expect to join in the pain and leave the vulnerable alone in this immoral proposed change to disability benefits.
Oh, by the way, many of the top 1,000 richest Brits are billionaire equity speculators, investment bankers and hedge-fund managers whose appetite for risk brought us to where we are now.
Iain Duncan Smith is clearly not a man who should be involved in the management of public funds and the Conservatives are clearly not a party who should have office…….but that goes for all of the three main political parties who are ideologically the same.
Let us not forget Tony Blair tried to cut disability benefits and got a bloody nose in return and where is the real LibDem opposition to this proposal by Duncan Smith?
One can only hope that this summer will see the British people stand up to the social injustice being waved in their faces every day by persons such as Iain Duncan Smith.
Image by Work and Pensions Office.Musical Mind20 at en.wikipedia [see page for license], from Wikimedia Commons
Hear! Hear! Richard. And William Hague would be best minded that if he and his government want a return to growth it is them that should be working harder to get the banks to lend our money to our businesses and not just continue to pay each other massive bonuses for their failure.
I now believe that the people who are making decisions that affect our lives are sociopaths. this has been a terrible shock. i believe that they are simply unable to understand humanity on any real level as they have themselves been abused and robbed of their humanity by a system that is endemic in its dehumanization. there is no point looking for their conscience or appealing to their better nature, as they have long lost any of these human qualities. they simply believe that they are right and cannot see anything apart from power and wealth. i believe that to understand them we need to understand fascism or extreme prejudice.
I believe that there is no alternative to strong, firm no nonsense action in dealing with these people due to their inability to behave in any compassionate way or understand another human beings needs.
i hope that all the "real" people on these pages who do care can join together to firmly and clearly say NO to the sick and dysfunctional policies that will perpetuate the cruelty and fear that these systems rely on to control others.
we will always need to monitor and be aware of it, for they are the darkest part of us all and when we are all in fear even the strongest and most caring of us can so easily be drawn back to the evil.
i want a better world where this financial and emotional terrorism is held in abeyance by our own awareness and support for each other.
Pat’s Petition, over 36,000 signatures, number 14 out of 12,400 petitions! Please sign and share Pat's Petition which calls for the government to "Stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families". The link is here http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20968
DLA/PIP is nothing to do with whether a person is working or not- it covers some of the additional costs arising from disability and actually helps some people to get and keep jobs. Also, it is paid to children and retired people who qualify.
Most of the money does not enrich people with disabilities as it goes straight into the local economy to pay for council and private care services, travel [including hospital appointments] and equipment. If people who need these lose DLA councils and the NHS will have to spend more.
Precisely Penny, all this is going to do is transfer a problem that has previously been dealt with from the general exchequer to the local authorities who will either pay or not. And who now runs most councils? Labour – this is just more Tory politicking.
I have come to the conclusion that being right wing is a psychoses as it appeals to those who have no empathy and refuse to grasp nor care about the concept of cause and effect. And the primary symptom of psychotics is a failure to see people as individuals.
My wife has suffered bravely with Multiple Sclerosis for almost 30 years of her life, she handles it and copes with it in a manner that deserves a medal and some recognition of her determination.
She does not under any circumstances deserve to classed as "festering" by anyone and partciualrly by members of this or any Government.
This comment by yet another Tory clown who simply has NO IDEA WHAT REALITY IS IN THIS WORLD….DESERVES NOTHING MORE THAN CONTEMPT and for sure if I had the opportunity I feel so angry and incensed that if I ever found myself confronting him or even in the same room as him I would force myself to projectile vomit all over him.
After that I'm afraid I'd have difficulty in stopping myself from becoming totally unbalanced and simply not responsible for my actions.
This is despicable and made worse by his supposed comments about people who have lost limbs, what about our youngsters who are fighting this totally futile battle in Afghanistan….and those coming back with limbs blown off by the bombs of this dreadful nation of imbeciles and drug dealers….
HOW ON EARTH CAN THEY BE BETTER OFF BECAUSE THEY NOW HAVE AN ARTIFICIAL LIMB OR LIMS…. disgraceful….
Mr Duncan Smith and the rest of this dreadful Government should be made to become the full time carers of that Terrorsist with the double hooks… made to wipe his arse for the rest of their lives.
There is no other way to describe this policy other than jackboot politics.
May i say well done Richard Henley Davis, this is absolutly correct.
but thats the sad point,, why worry about a few people getting benefits when the banking system ect is stealing untold BILLIONS off everyone. Distraction is what i see when i read or view the news nowadays.
Divide and consume.. and its always the poorest who suffer first. don't get me wrong EVERY ONE except the mega rich will suffer in the end!!
Mark my words.
'The measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members' – so how would you measure the UK now?
Homelessness is on the agenda whilst I do apologies for my bad spelling I was brought up on tax paying state education that has failed me, I wish to thank the government for appointing doctors who told me I have no future because I am disabled and now I have no entitlement to disability benefits and live with autism, dyspraxia and dyslexia , no one will employ me. I am not surprised that people have taken their own lives as the criminal bankers get rewarded in bankers bonuses people like my self are being punished, what is next people like us being sent to Hitlers gas chambers sorry if we are a financial and sociological burden on the government as I feel like I have committed a crime for having these difficulties.
But one think I ask of our politicians please don't insult me by punishing us half hardheartedly go the full way make us live in the streets this will make you happy.
I for one will never respect any of our governments in protest I will vote BNP I am fed up and disgusted at Labour, Lib, Con.
Aren't the BNP against disabled people? If you don't want to vote for any of the main 3 political parties, please consider the Green Party who support disabled people in the main.
So your protest to the three main right parties who have let us all down is to vote even more right wing? I'm sorry but do you realise just how ridiculous that is? That's like protesting at the high price of petrol by telling the government to charge us even more.