Britain Cuts, America Spends
Which will prove better: austerity or deficit spending? The respective approaches taken by Britain and America to recover the economy may prove a useful historical experiment.
“American conservatives complain about government spending and then they continue to expand government (see: Reagan defense spending, Bush II). British conservatives complain about government spending and then they actually slash spending (see: this plan to eliminate half a million government jobs in four years). … Let us praise David Cameron for having the courage of his convictions, but are those convictions any good? Does it make sense for Great Britain to pursue aggressive austerity at a time when interest rates are this low? … First, this provides something historically unique: an international comparison between similarly sick economies trying to cure themselves with opposite treatments.”
