The BBC reports Gordon Brown has rejected claims by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats that the Government is delaying spending cuts because of the election.
He has claimed that to cut spending now would risk a renewal of recession.
So he is admittedly, in effect, that the economy is propped up on the borrowed taxes of future generations.
With even the more left of centre Liberal Democrats proposing £10 billion less spending than Labour, it is difficult not to believe that there has simply been a naked political calculation to leave the hard decisions on cutting spending until after the election.
Gordon Brown said cuts would be in "low priority areas". Which begs the question as to why the government spends money on such things in the first place?
Labour appears to be trying to pull the wool over the eyes of voters by the claim that cutting spending would be wrong now, but then when has it ever cut spending? Gordon Brown ran deficits in almost every year as Chancellor of the Exchequer. In constant terms total government spending since 1997 has gone up by 31% from 1997 to 2007.
So you might ask whether the average UK taxpayer thinks they have gotten value from that. Public debt went up 35% in that time, in constant terms.
So the simple question to Gordon Brown is this.
If you borrow heavily when the economy is doing well and run ever larger deficits, when do you cut spending and start running surpluses to pay down the debt?
He has claimed that to cut spending now would risk a renewal of recession.
So he is admittedly, in effect, that the economy is propped up on the borrowed taxes of future generations.
With even the more left of centre Liberal Democrats proposing £10 billion less spending than Labour, it is difficult not to believe that there has simply been a naked political calculation to leave the hard decisions on cutting spending until after the election.
Gordon Brown said cuts would be in "low priority areas". Which begs the question as to why the government spends money on such things in the first place?
Labour appears to be trying to pull the wool over the eyes of voters by the claim that cutting spending would be wrong now, but then when has it ever cut spending? Gordon Brown ran deficits in almost every year as Chancellor of the Exchequer. In constant terms total government spending since 1997 has gone up by 31% from 1997 to 2007.
So you might ask whether the average UK taxpayer thinks they have gotten value from that. Public debt went up 35% in that time, in constant terms.
So the simple question to Gordon Brown is this.
If you borrow heavily when the economy is doing well and run ever larger deficits, when do you cut spending and start running surpluses to pay down the debt?
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