From the Financial Times:
The UK’s Conservative-led coalition has announced the most drastic budget cuts in living memory, outstripping measures taken by other advanced economies which are also under pressure to sharply reduce public spending. …
The UK cuts of £81bn ($128bn) over four years are the equivalent of 4.5 per cent of projected 2014-15 gross domestic product. Similar cuts in the US would require a cut in public spending of about $650bn, equal to the projected cost of Medicare in 2015.
The UK deficit is about 10 per cent of 2010-11 GDP. The US deficit was $1,294bn, or 8.9 per cent of GDP, in the 2010 fiscal year.
Declaring that “today is the day where Britain steps back from the brink”, George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, revealed dramatic reductions to core departments over the next four years, a £7bn fall in welfare support and 490,000 public-sector job cuts by 2014-15.
Actually, I’m just kidding about rejoining the UK, what with some significant differences in free speech protections, self-defense laws and other civil liberties issues. But if the Brits want to handle our federal government’s spending policies for a few years…
Rich
October 21, 2010 at 4:11 pmThis is just spin. There are no cuts, they are just not increasing spending at the same rate they would have before
They will spend £651 billion next year, then £655 billion, £679 billion and £693 billion in 2014/15.
They will still spend a ton of cash on ‘climate change’ and overseas aid, even to countries like Singapore, where the standard of living is higher than the UK.
J.D. Tuccille
October 21, 2010 at 7:49 pmAh. The old “cut in the rate of increase” gambit. That’s a shame — it sounded promising.
What’s worse is that it’s still better than the U.S. government’s spending plans.