Translation ;'many people favour someone else paying for them to farm their kids out'.
Translation ;'many people favour someone else paying for them to farm their kids out'.
Fool.
Many adults support paying an extra penny on income tax to fund affordable childcare for all, a survey has said. According to the Daycare Trust, 53% of people surveyed said they would be willing to pay extra tax, rising to 63% of parents with children under 16.
Adults in the North were most in favour of the idea, with 63% saying they would be prepared to pay an extra penny.
The survey of 1,300 adults said four out of five adults wanted cheap quality care for all children under 12 months.
Stephen Burke, director of the Daycare Trust, a childcare charity, said: "Quality childcare is good for children, good for families and good for society."
A typical nursery place for a child under two costs almost 7,000 a year and there is only one registered childcare place for every four children under eight nationally, the Daycare Trust said.
According to the survey, only a quarter of parents say that childcare has become more affordable over the last three years.
Even when there is help available, not all parents are aware of support with costs.
In London, for example, only 56% of parents were aware there was state help for childcare costs, through tax credits
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And my comment to that to all those people (probably parents) who support the idea - you can f**k right off - if you want kids then pay for them yourself. If you can't afford them - don't have them. I don't see why my pocket has to suffer because you can't be responsible enough for paying for your own sprogs.
"Bob" wrote
Sounds quite reasonable to me. What makes that opinion foolish?? :-(
This sounds like another LibDem idea. Has anyone actually bothered to work out if 1p is too much or not enough to pay for it?
I remember another of their ideas - 1p on beer to make the streets safer. Every year 1p (or more) is added to the price of beer without making any difference. I guess the LibDem penny is a magic penny.
What makes that Foolish, I have 3 Children and still agree that if you cannot afford them do not have them. Mind you I also think that you should only be funded in old age by what you have personally saved or what your children bring in. I hate the idea of the state providing either childcare services or safety net pensions, If you have not saved enough for your own pension "tough".
Andy
It is always easier to convince people of something if you disguise the true cost, 1p sounds like a tiny amount. Why don't you ask if people want to pay an extra £400-£500 pounds in taxes (the true cost to a family with both parents working), whether they have children or not? Even if government subsidized childcare is a good idea, which in itself is debatable, because a mother staying at home with the children is much better, there are plenty of other areas of government spending where savings can be made, before taxes are raised again.
I agree
In message , Steve wrote
The other popular phrase is 'it's only the price of a pint of beer per week' - or another £100/£125 per year.
It implies that people can give up a luxury item and redistribute the money for the benefit of the community.
Unfortunately when you add up all the extra pints for all the different options the bill becomes rather large.
I think it is foolish (in the sense of naive), although the OP loses credit for not explaining why he thinks it is foolish.
A 1p childcare tax can be justified in precisely the same way as any other tax. Do all the benefits outweigh all the costs?
Consider "I think we should raise income tax by 1p to pay for more x". x could be tanks, nuclear weapons, roads, airports or whatever.
I think there is at least a case that providing better childcare arrangements would generally be helpful. First, there may be economic benefits by allowing more people to work. Second, there may be social benefits from decreased crime and so forth. Third, there may be demographic benefits (as we have an ageing population and there may not be enough young people to keep things going smoothly).
I'm not saying that it is clear cut, but I can think of many worse things to spend tax revenues on.
On a general point I don't think that it is a very strong argument to oppose government spending simply because you don't personally directly benefit from it.
Thom
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