Daily Mail - Ban benefits claimants from spending handouts on alcohol...

lynx2051

lynx2051

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Benefits claimants should be banned from spending welfare handouts on alcohol and cigarettes, a Conservative MP has said.

Alec Shelbrooke wants to prohibit benefits being spent on luxury items by introducing electronic cash cards which could only be used for essential items such as food and clothing.

The cards would be similar to a chip and pin debit card but with a blocking function for non-essential items, the MP for Elmet and Rothwell told the House of Commons.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...hibit-state-welfare-spent-non-essentials.html
 
Captain.Heroin said:
I think that it's unreasonable to get help from the state and then to spend it on alcohol/tobacco. People who pay taxes don't want to think their taxes are going to enable people's habits.
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Its not all bad, alcohol and tobacco are so insanely taxed, they would be almost paying their own claim.
 
shurley there are ways round this system, for instance, what is stopping the benefit claimant from asking a friend with cash to buy them their ciggarette or booze, in exchange for something of equal value in food or clothing with their benefit credit card? or is that just too stupid to work?
 
kracks said:
shurley there are ways round this system, for instance, what is stopping the benefit claimant from asking a friend with cash to buy them their ciggarette or booze, in exchange for something of equal value in food or clothing with their benefit credit card? or is that just too stupid to work?
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It's quite a plausible thing to do, but can you imagine how much of a ballache it is to do everytime you fancy a drink or a smoke?

I'm all for something like this, might encourage a lot of the lazy assholes I know to finally get up and get a job no matter how shitty. :)
 
I"m not sure I see it working, they tried a similar system with foodstamps in America, and you ended up with addicts using their food stamps to buy things for other people and then being paid 50% of the value, which they then went and spent on drugs. Much like drug testing for welfare clients, I'd imagine the cost outweighs any possible benefit.
 
^That is basically what I was coming in here to post. It's too easy to work around. People used to sell food stamps so they switched to the EBT card to make it harder to do that. Now people just bring the person buying from them shopping with them.
 
Captain.Heroin said:
I think that it's unreasonable to get help from the state and then to spend it on alcohol/tobacco. People who pay taxes don't want to think their taxes are going to enable people's habits.
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What about people like me that have been paying my taxes for over 20 years already and are currently unemployed due to being made redundant.
My taxes I paid and national insurance tax money is paid to help people when they are out of work.
When they were taking over £100 a week from me for all those years at no stage did they state that I would only be able to spend it on what I'm told to spend it on.
As it stands I only get £140 every two weeks so there isn't exactly much cash for luxuries anyway after paying energy bills and buying food etc.
 
^ good point also cigarettes and alchol kill people so by denying them you are removing a serious social scum culling factor allowing the leech to live way longer. this is counterproductive as the sooner they die, the less they cost.
 
maxalfie said:
As it stands I only get £140 every two weeks so there isn't exactly much cash for luxuries anyway after paying energy bills and buying food etc.
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^ this

The assistance is so little, you don't have the ability to spend it on luxuries, and doing so would only hurt your life situation.

You could have always worked illegally to avoid paying taxes in that fashion if that seriously bothers you so much, which is something a lot of people are already doing. For the record, I don't agree with paying taxes into federal programs that you won't ever see back (for instance, social security inevitably going bankrupt in the US) so I think it's almost ideal to work "under the table" so as to not pay taxes, assuming an equal pay rate.

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Last option; you could have moved to the US - you can use general relief money on booze and smokes here.
 
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Yet another example of conservatives targetting the poor instead of going after the people that put the economy right where it is.

Is the government COMPLETELY controlled by the financial elites or something? They shouldn't be this blind.

The amount of money spent bailing out multi-national corporations and banks could pay for welfare for everyone in the UK for a couple of years.
 
Foreigner said:
The amount of money spent bailing out multi-national corporations and banks could pay for welfare for everyone in the UK for a couple of years.
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Agreed; governments are foolish at best (criminal at worst) for bailing out corporations and banks.

I still believe in the principle that you shouldn't use welfare money for drugs though. I'm pretty sure that in the US you can use your general relief money for alcohol/tobacco and that's not against the rules here, but this thread is about the UK though.
 
The government should be more concerned with getting companies like Vodafone & Starbucks to start paying the tax that they owe.
When it came to light that Starbucks hadn't paid any taxes in the UK for the last 3 years they volunteered to pay £20 million to the tax man.
Sorry Starbucks it doesn't work like that, you don't offer an amount that you want to pay, the tax man takes what you owe from you.
Little companies have to pay their taxes so do their employees and the self employed so what makes you think you can get away without paying them.
Pay up or fuck off.
 
If you are dependent on someone else's charity to survive, I think you shouldn't be spending their $ on booze and cigs...

Here in Vancouver local businesses instituted a program where you can buy sandwich tokens for the local homeless population... there was a big stink because people took offense that such a program "means we cannot trust the homeless with money". Unfortunately in a lot of cases, if you give a crack addict 40 bucks and tell him to spend it on groceries, they're going to spend at least a singificant protion of that money on some white... around here the liquor stores always get

I also have heard of people using goivernment assistance Mastercards in the US to do stupid shit like buy large screen TV's and go to strip clubs... no sympathy for people on welfare who choose to drink and party their government stipend away.
 
^This is the UK therefore it isn't money from someone else's Charity. The social security benefits are paid to people out of the taxes they have paid while they are working.
Our taxes enable us to have benefits to support us when out of work and give us health care so we don't have to pay when we go to hospital or to the doctor.
 
TrYpTiCaL said:
^That is basically what I was coming in here to post. It's too easy to work around. People used to sell food stamps so they switched to the EBT card to make it harder to do that. Now people just bring the person buying from them shopping with them.
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I know of multiple stores that will do things like charge your ebt card for 50, then give you 30 cash or other similar cash for ebt exchanges. So yeah there's always a workaround.
 
Unfortunately in a lot of cases, if you give a crack addict 40 bucks and tell him to spend it on groceries, they're going to spend at least a singificant protion of that money on some white... around here the liquor stores always get
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Fuck it, someone living hard on the streets deserves a shot or puff or drink to take their mind off shit, imo. Not like you're going to make them see the light, quit drugs and go get a job by denying them $10, it just gives a kick of moral superiority.
 
of course they shouldn't spend their welfare handouts on drugs and the like. doing so is not in the least productive. but it's still their decision. and if they value these things more than food or clothes, then i wonder what these people would do to get them if they couldn't use their handouts. even when i think that i'm unlikely to get into such a situation, i'll gladly pay for welfare (thats apparently quite a bit higher here than in the uk) that may be used for "luxuries" as it brings social peace. i'll nuver understand those people who wish to introduce a situation like in the u.s. to europe.
 
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