This comes from the excellent Class mythbuster on dept and austerity:
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Read more about me
If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi using credit or debit card or PayPal
Tax Research UK Blog is written by Richard Murphy unless otherwise stated and published by Tax Research LLP under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Design by Andy Moyle
“Despite this the Coalition set out to cut the debt.”
Don’t think I will bother with the rest of the report when it has such an outright lie in the middle of this page…….
Where on earth is there any statement that the Coalition set out to cut debt rather than reduce the deficit and the level of the debt increasing!
For heaven’s sake – they say they want to return to a surplus – the goal being to cut the debt
Why else do it
If you don’t understand what they’re doing why support it?
Firstly the intention to run a surplus is a recent announcement and not part of the coalition agreement in 2010 upon which this comment is based.
Second the intention was always to limit and/or stop the increase in debt.
Third the intention to run a surplus is about creating safety room for a future financial crisis just as a Keynesian would advocate.
If as an economic expert you see no difference between the statements “cut the deficit” and “cut the debt” then this blog has a problem!
It was always the plan to run a surplus
He said so in 2010 – has aimed for a balanced budget as the start of the process
He has just failed to do it
The initial ConDem plan was to eliminate the structural deficit within 5 years (now extended to 10 years of course due to their total failure to understand austerity economics). So I think it’s completely reasonable to say that the ConDems were aiming for debt to be on a falling trajectory by 2015 (indeed this was one of Osborne’s 2 fiscal targets – the other one being the “fiscal mandate” saying “we aim for a structural budget balance in 5 years’ time”. By the way, if the growth rate of the economy in percentage terms is bigger than borrowing as a % of GDP then debt/GDP will fall even if the economy runs a deficit every year. It’s just another example of George Osborne’s economic ignorance that he thinks we need to run a surplus to bring the debt down.
Or as Martin Wolf put it at more length:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c2fc7352-25de-11e3-aee8-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2ge3N8RWi
In June 2010, the OBR forecast cumulative net borrowing of £322bn between 2011-12 and 2015-16. In March 2013 this was up to £564bn. In June 2010 the structural current budget was forecast to be in surplus by 2014-15. By March 2013 this had slipped two years. In June 2010 the ratio of public sector net debt to GDP was forecast to start falling in 2014-15. By March 2013 this had moved back to 2017-18. The peak level of net debt also jumped from 70.3 per cent to 85.6 per cent of GDP.
Spot on
Hi Richard. I wish I’d had this to hand at yesterday’s full council meeting of Sheffield City Council where councillors of all hues were showing so much ignorance. On a related note, as we know the robbery called ‘austerity’ is hitting the poorer and poorest by transferring our wealth to the wealthiest. Could you point me to some reliable data that support claims government income and spending has actually increased to £15.1billion in the lates financial year and gives a breakdown of where that spending has gone? I can find an article in The Spectator but not sure if I trust that source…
Or I should have said, Could you point me to some reliable data that support claims that the GAP between government income and consumption has increased by £15.1billion…
David
I used to keep this data up to date
I don’r right now…
Sorry
It’s in the Budget
Richard