Wing clipping is a very personal decision. Some people feel that taking away a bird's ability to flight is cruel and if you can't allow your birds to free fly, you shouldn't have them. However, captive birds are captive birds, and they can get into a lot more trouble if you leave them flighted than if you clip them. There have been many deaths caused by leaving a bird flighted, though, it can be argued, there have also been birds who have died specifically because they couldn't fly away.
I recommend clipping in the beginning. Your bird will be more likely to want to sit with you, and it will make the bonding process easier and faster. Flighted birds who don't know you will, of course, fly away from you.
Once you have a few years under your belt, you should have done some more research about flighted vs. non flighted birds and heard enough of the argument to make your own decision. I definitely think non-flighted is safer than flighted, but, as I already said, it is a personal decision.
Wing clipping does not hurt a bird... it is like getting a haircut. The feathers grow back, usually every 2 months or so, and they will need to be clipped again. You can have your vet show you how to do a proper wing clip, and learn to do it yourself.
A proper wing clip allows a bird to flutter harmlessly to the floor, but does not allow it to gain any altitude.
There is a lot of good information on wing clipping and household dangers at exoticpetvet.net.
Here is the article on wing clipping:
http://exoticpetvet.net/avian/clip.html
And this article is about the top ten killers of pet birds. You can see that many are caused by leaving a bird flighted, and others are caused from taking away the ability of flight. Nevertheless, wing clipping is recommended by most parrot experts. This is a great article, and I think all bird owners need to read it:
http://exoticpetvet.net/avian/topten.html
While you're at that site, read all the bird articles. They are very good.