How easy will it be for the US/UK to change course by reforming state entitlement programs to assume a more fiscally sustainable trajectory for government?
Is Gordy’s refusal to publicly acknowledge this and lambast the Tories for their whole scale approach to government cuts (‘the 10% cuts’) making it more difficult to sell state entitlement reform to the public?
California’s current debt problems and inability to get the electorate on board with its cost cutting programs illustrates what might lie ahead.
Or will the change of course only happen on hitting the wall? -> straight default/higher taxes crippling economy -> default
1 response so far ↓
sharperedge // June 30, 2009 at 2:39 pm |
Lord Digby Jones on the FOUR hurdles facing cost reform:
Firstly there are vested interests which will put the country’s needs behind their own.
And we have a media which always links public spending savings with fewer nurses and teachers, making every politician run scared of tackling the issue.
Add to that political cowardice – understandable in democracies – but even if the penny drops and that is overcome the people who will be tasked with achieving the changes will be the very people who will suffer and
And finally – turkeys do not vote for Christmas!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8123925.stm