Time to challenge the use of the word "Austerity" to mean balancing the books
The language in which a subject is discussed often affects the way the debate goes and can sometimes be more powerful than the actual arguments.
The left's biggest linguistic victory in the second half of the 20th century was getting everyone to use the expression "poll tax" for the community charge. I was never a huge fan of the community charge but calling it the poll tax was a gross oversimplification - and a political stroke of genius. "Poll Tax" has seven letters and two syllables instead of fifteen letters and four syllables, had just enough truth to be defensible, and immediately saddled the new tax with a host of perjorative connotations, some accurate, some not.
Worst of all, the impression was soon created that if you liked it you called it the Community Charge, if you didn't you called it the poll tax - and because the latter term is so much easier and quicker to say that meant it appeared to have even less support than it did.
If we're not very careful we will hand the extreme left an even bigger linguistic victory - by allowing them to label responsible budgeting and balancing the books as "austerity."
It's time to make clear that NOBODY SUPPORTS AUSTERITY FOR AUSTERITY'S SAKE.
When you come into government with the state spending four pounds for every three it raises, where the national debt has been doubled and is heading for £1.2 trillion, and in consequence the state is spending more in interest payments on the national debt than the entire education budget and the outgoing number two at the treasury leaves a note saying "there is no money left" - then you will have no choice but to make painful cuts.
That was the position Labour left the present government in 2010 and perhaps in that context challenging the word "Austerity" as a description of the inevitable and unavoidable costs whoever won the 2010 election would have had to make would have been a waste of time.
This does not mean that advocates of responsible finance who want to balance the books LIKE making people suffer.
It means that they have the two or more working brain cells necessary to see that if you don't get the debt under control MORE suffering and austerity lies just around the corner.
Britain has that £1.2 trillion of debt now and although the coalition has cut the deficit by a third in absolute terms, or by half as a share of GDP, the national debt is still going up.
That means that a massive share of the money raised in tax is going, not on schools and hospitals but on paying interest on the national debt - and as soon as interest rates rise above the present rock bottom levels, we will be paying more than the entire cost of the Home office and Education budgets put together just to pay the interest on our debts.
What is progressive about saddling future generation with even bigger debts?
So next time you hear a journalist or someone on the hard left describe trying to keep spending under control as "austerity," challenge them on it - and as about the even greater austerity which will be needed in the future to pay the interest on our debts if we don't get borrowing under control.
The left's biggest linguistic victory in the second half of the 20th century was getting everyone to use the expression "poll tax" for the community charge. I was never a huge fan of the community charge but calling it the poll tax was a gross oversimplification - and a political stroke of genius. "Poll Tax" has seven letters and two syllables instead of fifteen letters and four syllables, had just enough truth to be defensible, and immediately saddled the new tax with a host of perjorative connotations, some accurate, some not.
Worst of all, the impression was soon created that if you liked it you called it the Community Charge, if you didn't you called it the poll tax - and because the latter term is so much easier and quicker to say that meant it appeared to have even less support than it did.
If we're not very careful we will hand the extreme left an even bigger linguistic victory - by allowing them to label responsible budgeting and balancing the books as "austerity."
It's time to make clear that NOBODY SUPPORTS AUSTERITY FOR AUSTERITY'S SAKE.
When you come into government with the state spending four pounds for every three it raises, where the national debt has been doubled and is heading for £1.2 trillion, and in consequence the state is spending more in interest payments on the national debt than the entire education budget and the outgoing number two at the treasury leaves a note saying "there is no money left" - then you will have no choice but to make painful cuts.
That was the position Labour left the present government in 2010 and perhaps in that context challenging the word "Austerity" as a description of the inevitable and unavoidable costs whoever won the 2010 election would have had to make would have been a waste of time.
This does not mean that advocates of responsible finance who want to balance the books LIKE making people suffer.
It means that they have the two or more working brain cells necessary to see that if you don't get the debt under control MORE suffering and austerity lies just around the corner.
Britain has that £1.2 trillion of debt now and although the coalition has cut the deficit by a third in absolute terms, or by half as a share of GDP, the national debt is still going up.
That means that a massive share of the money raised in tax is going, not on schools and hospitals but on paying interest on the national debt - and as soon as interest rates rise above the present rock bottom levels, we will be paying more than the entire cost of the Home office and Education budgets put together just to pay the interest on our debts.
What is progressive about saddling future generation with even bigger debts?
So next time you hear a journalist or someone on the hard left describe trying to keep spending under control as "austerity," challenge them on it - and as about the even greater austerity which will be needed in the future to pay the interest on our debts if we don't get borrowing under control.
Comments
being austere with family finances for example does not mean being a total skin flint. We can go for a treat, like a meal out once in a while, and we can buy other things we do need, we can also buy some things we want.
All it means is we cant earn £2000 per month and routinely spend £2500 per month going for a meal out every night. It means if we really really do need something (for example to fix the house after a storm) then we can borrow to do it, but we have cut down on meals out and a car may have to last 5 years not 3, so we can pay off the debt as soon as we can, and then get back to our higher standard of life, which of course, is now back within our means.
So really No one wants auterity for austerities sake is quite redundant. to a government, then making the books balance should be a default position, and it should go without saying.
You and I, Jim, know that there are limits in the long run to how much governments can spend, not just to governments as well as businesses, families, and individuals.
We might not agree where those limits are, but they are there, and we are also agreed that a country where the government has borrowed as much as successive governments have in Britain is in danger of crashing into those limits with painful consequences.
Unfortunately not everyone does see that or accept what for you and indeed me should go without saying.
And part of the problem is that some people who think that the need for financial discipline does not apply to governments - they basically imagine that governments have some sort of magic money tree whereby if they spend more, extra resources appear - are trying to use the negative connotations which the word "austerity" has for many people, to argue against the sort of common sense you and I would think should be a default position.