Should Benefits be Capped at 26K?

I never thought I'd say this, but for once I am on David Cameron's side about something. I've been reading so many articles and watching so many debates online about whether or not it is fair and acceptable to cap the child benefits at £26k a year and shockingly, the majority of people seem to be against this, with the idea that if the benefits are capped at this amount of money, people will be forced to live on the streets without food or shelter.

I have one word in response to this: bullshit.

I tell a lie, I have many words in response to this, and if you finish reading this entry to the end, you'll discover just what they are. My first, and I would have thought it obvious point is the burning question of WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE CHILDREN WHEN THEY CAN'T AFFORD TO BRING THEM UP? Children are expensive and surely if you're struggling with supporting just yourself and your partner, or your only child, you'd just choose not to have any more children? In today's day and age, where contraception is not only free but practically thrown in our faces 24/7, people have no excuses for unwanted pregnancies. If a trip to your local GP for the contraceptive pill is too much for you then it's simple: just don't open your legs until you're financially able to provide for a family.

If you choose to have one child, and then another, and then another, you are in no position to then complain at the public for not supporting you when you fail to support yourself. Children are not something that are forced upon us at random times, without our having any say in the matter and it's shocking that people seem to think that they are. You only have to tune into The Jeremy Kyle Show every morning to see vapid and pointless human beings waiting for DNA results because they've had unprotected sex with so many people that they don't even know who the father of their child is. This is hardly an unsolvable problem is it? It isn't like the government fails to provide these people with an adequate sex education. It therefore isn't the government's fault if they choose to ignore it and end up in a position where they are finding it hard to cope with the consequences of their behaviour.

In addition to this, £26,000 is a lot of money. My parents don't earn this much money between them and I've grown up comfortably, with a warm house, enough food to eat and money given to me for clothes and transport. We can also afford luxuries such as holidays, internet and a television, as well as the odd trip to a restaurant or whatever. We don't live in poverty. Now that I'm at university I live on £60 a week and this enables me to eat for a week (spending an average of £10 on food) and have a couple of nights out, as well as buying little essentials such as books for my course. £26,000 a year is £500 a week, and even when rent and bills are deducted, this is still quite a large amount of money and more than enough for a family to live on. The Department for Work and Pensions states that the cap is the "equivalent to someone earning £35,000 before tax, a salary many working families would be happy to receive".

Many people who have studied at university and have worked for years don't earn this amount of money so why should people who, in many cases, choose not to work get even this amount, let alone more than this? It simply isn't fair and when people who go out and work hard everyday are earning less than people who don't, there is something drastically wrong.

Mike Hewlett commented on The Independent's article (see sources), saying "It took me 17 years, a university diploma and three promotions to achieve £25,500 pay as a civil servant. I could have just stayed at home and produced children." This is precisely the problem. I am not against child benefits on the whole as I appreciate that sometimes they are necessary. Things don't always work out. People unexpectedly become single parents or lose their jobs. I am aware of this. However, these people should be provided with enough support to MANAGE, not enough support that they can afford to live a far more affluent lifestyle than people who go out and engage in hard work. £26,000 is in my opinion too much. It is more than enough to pay for rent, bills, food and other essentials, and so why is there such uproar that this could be the maximum benefit amount? Benefits are designed to ensure that people shouldn't have to live in poverty. No more. If you want to have an iPhone, Sky television, designer trainers and a fashionable postcode then I'm sorry but if you don't work, you don't get!

Telling somebody that they can't live in an expensive borough such as Chelsea is not the same as forcing them to live in poverty. If you can't afford to pay rent on a lovely house in a place like Chelsea then hard luck, move to Salford! If you're not working, there's no reason why you simply MUST live in central London or wherever. Live somewhere cheaper. Not being able to go clubbing and eat out every night is not the same as living in poverty. If you want to see poverty then take a trip to the poor parts of India, or countless African countries where people are starving on the streets because their government really don't give them anything.

If rent is honestly an issue then students should be the ones getting £26,000 benefits, not dole scum who would rather smoke weed and stick their willies everywhere than indulge in some honest labour. Next year I'll be paying £70 a week for a room in Salford. There are 8 rooms in the house I'll be living in. That's £560 a week that the landlord is making. Deducting bills, that gives him £480 a week. That's a grand total of £2080 a month for a house that isn't in a particularly nice area. I don't know of any landlord that would charge that amount of rent on a house in this area that was being let to non-students. And yet students have to live on a couple of thousand pounds a year. I get around £6000 but that's only because I'm entitled to a grant due to growing up in a low income family. Most people get half this amount. I'd just love somebody to try and prove to me that students are not the ones being exploited as far as state benefits and renting costs go.