Benefits 'smart cards' plan revealed by Iain Duncan Smith - Here it is again

Benefit Cards

Mods please move to correct topic, not sure where to put this thread.

This was in the paper again this morning. 30 - 09 - 2014

What about things like toys for kids Christmas and a bottle of wine for the table during Christmas dinner. What about those people that don't get access to big supermarkets where these card machines will only be installed. What about taking kids to cinema and KFC or burger king or MacDonald s for a treat. Cant buy your kid this video game because YOUR NOT WORKING its complete BS. This will effect all items they deem unessential. So what will this stupid arrogant selfish bunch of out of touch toffs consider necessary?

Who are are the government or you who agrees to decide how someone spends there money, ITS NOT YOUR MONEY its a collectives money mine included.

This is so extreme you may as well live on planet totalitarian. Its disgusting that this government can decide on how people can spend there money.

How does the government decide what types of products are necessary. Oh you cant have that its got to much sugar or to much fat in. This is so wrong in so many ways.

I pay £300 - 400 every month in tax and national insurance and TBH i don't give a # what decent families on benefits spend there money on. Lets say you loose your job and for a few months you have to go on benefits and you suddenly can't take your kids for a day out at the cinema and a pizza afterwards how you gonna feel.

fair enough for the alcoholics and drug addicts that look stoned or pissed when they turn up to sign on. They should single the offenders out and not the whole group that include families trying to get by. This is the worst ever idea i have ever heard in my life and i hope it fails big time. How can that @#%& Ian Duncan Smith sleep at night.

This means if you are on benefits you are not entitled to a decent standard of living and you are in a class system of scumbags. When i read this this morning in the paper at work i was so angry at the audacity of the government to even think of something like this.

This will lead to people selling items to get a bit of cash so they can buy something they are not allowed to. People will result to crime to get simple luxury's in life that should not be selective based on your current position in life. This is so wrong on so many levels where will this end...

Here's my perspective, I'm not a citizen of the UK, however.

If you're a taxpayer, and someone has a bottle of wine and toys for christmas off the dole, it hurts morale. For the working poor who pay taxes, and you can't afford such luxuries, but your neighbors whom you support can, what incentive is there to work?

This is really the socialist nightmare scenario many of us fear in the US, that half the working population will be supporting a second family.

It goes beyond the basic needs of shelter, medical care, and food. Now we have to support thier pride and dignity as well?

The very moment money is declared the property of the "collective" over here, I'm going to advise everyone I know to quit working and move to the moon...

My definition of "totalitarianism", would probably be a society where every man and the fruit of his labor is a slave to every other man.

I'm asking when it will end as well...

a reply to: Ezappa

Don't you know poor people are not supposed to have nice things or luxury items?

What the moron fails to release is all this would do is create a black market or rioting on the streets!

Something to keep in mind Iain Duncan Smith “The True Measure of Any Society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members” – Ghandi.

I don't think its right that Jay Leno has 349 cars in his own garage yet some people on this planet are cold and hungry. Or that John McCain owns 14 mansions. I don't think it would be asking that much of corporations to bare the responsibility for uplifting humanities low living conditions. Bare Necessities for people for free. Housing, transportation, food, electricity, communication. We already have enough already, but we are not utilizing it. Throwing perfectly good food away because no one buys it. Empty houses sit for sale after they are forclosed and NOBODY is buying them. Millions of vehicles sitting in lots across the country because no one has the money to buy a 30k car. While people starve, even in America.

Basically someday I hope people wake up and figure out government/corporations is taking more than its giving, than we can have more duality and equality. IDK maybe our money is being diverted for nefarious purposes? well, actually that much is clear.

a reply to: Ezappa

They should single the offenders out and not the whole group that include families trying to get by.

As I understand it the idea is for parents with known drink or drugs problems to be given the cards to try to curb their behavior but there are plenty of unscrupulous shopkeeps out there who will no doubt circumvent the card for a cut.

It's just another of Duncan Smiths bright ideas that would no doubt fall on its face if it were to be enacted ...which it won't because the Tories will lose the election next May

a reply to: gortex

Our brains in britain come from out of touch tiffs and cheap just out of uni kids - hence the lucicrous ideas they come ump with. Were they to have a number of ordinary working and unemployed people seconded to their ;committees their output would be far more rational and objective, instead of inexperienced, idealistic and totally out of touch comm ittees that dream up and implement the laws of this coucntry.

Also which supermarkets will get this great financial boom/aid to enhance their figures? Or will government buy a supermarket chain and accommodate the products they deem fit for the shelves only.

I wonder will it pay for sky television ,petrol etc Ian Duncan Smith is the man who said he could live well on the benefits that people receive ,yet anyone one benefits seems to struggle to pay the basics of life , i wonder will heating be a luxury item as most people on benefits seem to think it is

a reply to: TurtleSmacker

It ends with working people also having to use such a card and not being able to spend their money as they wish because if effects their health and by so making Obama Care not payable for you anymore.

Bring back the work houses, that'll teach those on benefits a lesson, because everyone on benefits are exactly the same as those on benefit street. If the workhouses don't teach benefit claimants a lesson, ship them off to the Middle East to take on Isis. That'll learn them. I'm expecting lots of green arrows for this statement on the Daily mail website and few stars from ATS posters. Benefit claimants.....eugh

a reply to: BornAgainAlien

Rather a few working people and families in the U.K are already reliant on food banks to survive. People on minimum wage are pretty much no better of than people on benefits. Its the distribution of wealth that has to change.

A card system like the one proposed simply would not work and only contribute to the growing haves and have not's in our society.

Well, here in the US, at most large stores, you are not required to show ID when using your Benefits card. So easy enough to have someone give you cash, and let them spend that amount, on your card.

Not saying it is right, but it is done all the time.

a reply to: TurtleSmacker

I will agree with you on that and anyone who can afford these Luxuries (not the toy's (educational ets) for the kid's as children should not be excluded by poverty in one of the most advanced economies in the world) is receiving excess benefit and in the uk there is a plague of abuse going on.

But the root of the problem is here.
We have a benefits system that was put in place by a british government for british people and we have immigrants to whom we owe nothing and who have not paid taxes, whose fathers and mothers never paid taxes and who often have multilple wives both here and in there country of origin claiming and pooling our benefit money for there own use, we have an army of illegal immigrants trying to get her to take advantage of this problem, a problem which is solely down to government level corruption and incompetance as well as a lack of British patriotism to it's own people at government level.
Back in the 1980's our wages were regulated by law to keep pace with inflation and our workers paid tax that helped to subsidize british company's helping them to compete on the global stage but then along came Thatcherite policy and the intent of restoring the victorial/edwardian master serf class status, as part of this goal she decided the working class then the bulk of the population had too much power so to curtail that power she removed the index link between wage and inflation, cue over thirty years of REAL wage fall relative to percentage of GDP, the managers the higher up they go recieved larger wage rises in comparison to percentage of GDP funnelling the nations wealth and assets into there private bank account's (remember a managing director is only an employee at the end of the day unless he is a major share holder).
This same right wing policy against the masses of people also happened over a longer period in the states with tax now raised from low earning workers rather than the corporations and wealthy.
Right wing is not God's right as that is christ remember, No right wing is wrong wing and the Right side of Satan plain and simple, greed is good, sharing with the nation and it's people is bad, if you spout of social justice you must be a militant or extremist or fascist.

My ancestor's paid for this country and my family there descendants in there blood sweat and tears over so many generations I can not find a first british migrant probably because I would have to go back to bronze age at least.

I am British, This is my country, the soil is the ashes, dust, sweat, tears and hard labour of my ancestor's and my government are a group of traitors who have betrayed there own nation as part of this global village one world government and suppress the masses nonsense.

The tory's and new labour want burning for there betrayal of Britain, ask any old soldier still alive not an officer what his opinion of them is.

a reply to: chiefsmom

If they make this actually happen, it would not surprise me if the card was to be a photo ID card with a sort code and account number bound to your name and address, to combat those types of fraud.

a reply to: douglas5

When I first heard about this last year or so ago, Sky TV and Cable was one of the luxury's he considered not worthy of someone on the dole or receiving benefit as there main income. This even effects people on sick benefit as the whole benefit system is all going under one roof and payment system. I don't know about child benefit though not sure.

Child benefit every one in in UK is entitled to it even if your wealthy, but it was mentioned that that could change also. They may even think having a car while on benefits is a luxury that you should not have while claiming unemployment benefit, giving you less chance of actually getting a job.

a reply to: Ezappa

That kind of scenario is rather Orwellian. And would most lightly destroy any government that implemented such an idea. Point of fact, they would most lightly employ the use of biometric data in any smart cards issued but to be quite frank, where there is a will, there is a way.

a reply to: woodwardjnr

The majority of people who work on the minimum wage are in receipt of some form of benefit, unless both parents are working full time in most cases. Even then you could still be entitled to working tax credits and child tax credits in which both are considered benefits.

a reply to: andy06shake

The government has already demonized benefit claimants in some way or another as you already know. They already have the support of half the nation as it is.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Very, very true. I'd give you a star but I don't know how. At one time you could not claim any benefits till you had so many national insurance stamps on your card but that seems to have fell by the wayside. The biggest lie that comes out of politicians mouths is when some one has worked all their working lives and claims any benefits they are classed as scroungers and this is believed by the majority of people(they get lumped in with the immigrant scroungers) . BUT and it is the biggest but in the world, the money they are claiming is their own money that's been paid into the system. Just because the politicians have raided the national insurance pot there is not enough money to cover what it was set up for ie. pensions, NHS, unemployment and other benefits.

a reply to: Ezappa

You probably already realise these cards would be used for a hell of a lot more than just to purchase goods and supplies. Taken to it's logical conclusion said smart cards would most lightly, given time, impact just about every aspect of our every day lifes, employed or otherwise. That's a Mark of the beast scenario of our own creation if ever there was one. Which is why any government attempting to implement such a scheme would ultimately fail. At least I dam well hope "they" would.

a reply to: Ezappa

Totally wrong.

If someone is on Benefits.... why should they only be able to buy certain things? Ok, maybe there are people who have totally gone over the top with their cheating but who's fault is that?? It's the Governments fault for giving Benefits to all who came over here looking for it.

They should'nt tarnish everyone with the same brush and even they themselves cheat the system!