UK: 77% Spending Cuts, 23% Tax Increases

clipped from www.wallstreetjournal.com U.K. Government Delivers 'Unavoidable' Budget Britain's new government set out what it dubbed the "unavoidable budget" as it sought to cut one of the worst deficits in the world with billions of pounds worth of cuts and tax rises that will hit everybody from public-sector workers to banks, welfare recipients and videogame makers. The budget represented a concerted attempt to whittle down the size of the state, whose blueprint could encourage other large economies across Europe to lower deficits by chipping away with government cuts. In his first budget, Treasury chief George Osborne said his fiscal consolidation will eliminate the structural current deficit and ensure the U.K's debt burden is falling as a percentage of gross domestic product by the 2014-2015 financial year. Mr. Osborne, the youngest Treasury chief in more than a century, said 77% of the fiscal consolidation will come through spending cuts, with the rest delivered through tax increases.

Here are the details on how the UK is dealing with their economic crisis and public debt. I suppose we've always thought that we should increase government spending and run deficits during tough economic times. But, we've been increasing government spending and running bigger and bigger deficits through good times and bad times. Hardly Keynesian, eh?