Austerity is Austerity and It's Failed in the UK

slate.com — he failure of austerity policies in the United Kingdom is a bit of an embarrassment for proponents of austerity in the United States, so austerians like Veronique de Rugy have beat a tactical retreat toward arguing that the problem in Britain is too many tax hikes. And I agree — those tax hikes were misguided because austerity was misguided and so a fortiori tax-side austerity was also misguided. But as a simple matter of arguing honestly and clearly, if your policy prescription is "deficit reduction but without any tax increases" then deficit reduction isn't actually your policy prescription at all. The fact that conservative politicians, policy entrepreneurs, and economists favor low tax rates and low revenue levels is well-known and in fact the exact opposite of conservative thinking about how to respond to a special crisis situation.

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