You don’t have to be a modern monetarist to believe that the UK has a debt crisis. There are a number of well evidenced and widely believed economic theories that support the use of a Government deficit to induce growth which is the surest way to reduce national debt. Those that argue austerity is a choice are bang on the money.
Debt fetishists need to get this, but so do those who argue that we should fund some desirable programme, be it pensioners winter fuel allowances, doctor’s recruitment or student debt forgiveness because we can fund a defence budget. How we use and deploy our military is of course a matter of other priorities but arguing we need to accept austerity but applying the cuts elsewhere is ignorant.
Originally published at https://davelevy.info on September 1, 2024.
