Cut The Crap - Do We Need To Cut Public Spending?

Created by: AnonymousUser. User 'yossarian' did: promote at Sat Sep 26 08:13:04 +0000 2009.

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true CUT THE CRAP - DO WE NEED TO CUT PUBLIC SPENDING? It's party conference season and all parties now seem to agree that reducing the budget deficit is essential: Cameron has been calling for an ‘age of austerity', Brown admitted to the TUC that cuts are now ‘inevitable' and Clegg tried to trump them both by saying we need ‘savage' cuts... before later retracting. The recession has left a yawning gap in public finances but there is actually little consensus on what and how deep the ‘cuts' should be. What are the factors driving the demand for cuts, and is there really no choice in the matter? Is there any difference between ‘gleeful' Tory cuts and ‘responsible' Labour ones? What will be the impact of reductions in public spending when, for example, 75% of employment in Newcastle is in the public sector? There is a reluctance to see frontline services affected but at the same time there is little idea of how the state might spend in order to start the recovery. What should the state be doing in the recession? And why, in contrast to previous periods of downturn, has the social response been so muted? Speaker: Rob Lyons, deputy editor, spiked Readings: State Capitalism in Britain James Heartfield, MetaMute, 24 June 2009 <a href="http://www.metamute.org/content/state_capitalism_in_britain">http://www.metamute.org/content/state_capitalism_in_britain</a> Slash public-sector non-jobs, not power plants, roads and rail links Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph, 21 September 2009 <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/6212799/Slash-public-sector-non-jobs-not-power-plants-roads-and-rail-links.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/6212799/Slash-public-sector-non-jobs-not-power-plants-roads-and-rail-links.html</a> Where your money goes: the definitive atlas of UK government spending Guardian, 13 September 2009 <a href="http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2008/09/12/13.09.08.Public.spending.pdf">http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2008/09/12/13.09.08.Public.spending.pdf</a> David Cameron warns of 'new age of austerity' Deborah Summers, Guardian, 26 April 2009 <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/26/david-cameron-conservative-economic-policy1">http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/26/david-cameron-conservative-economic-policy1</a> The cuts ‘debate', dumb, dumber and dumberer Rob Killick, UK after the recession blog, 22 September 2009 <a href="http://postrecession.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/the-cuts-debate-dumb-dumber-and-dumberer/">http://postrecession.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/the-cuts-debate-dumb-dumber-and-dumberer/</a>

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