This tells you almost everything you need to know about Britain’s prime minister. Michael Gerson is a fan:
British Prime Minister David Cameron has emerged as the most admirable of anomalies: the budget-cutter as leader of conscience.
If relocated to America, Cameron’s program of austerity would make him an unrivaled Tea Party darling. What serious American has made detailed proposals to cut spending in each government department by an average of nearly 20 percent during the next four years? Who would choose to simultaneously slash government jobs, social services and military spending? The extremity of Britain’s fiscal crisis, of course, left few alternatives to budget-cutting ambition. Yet many British politicians have opted for less-responsible approaches. Cameron campaigned, won and generally has governed on a platform of fiscal discipline.
Really? I hate to be a stickler for facts and stuff, but, if Cameron “won” (he failed to secure a clean majority against one of the most visibly incompetent governments in British history), it was only by going into coalition with the distinctly soft on spending Liberal Democrats. It’s also worth noting that both before and during the campaign there were stretches when Cameron devoted as much time to talking about what he would not cut (thus the National Health Service has, famously, been “ring-fenced”) as what he would.
And how, outside Gersonworld, is that budget-cutting really going? Here’s veteran Tory MP John Redwood with some details:
For most of the last year I have been explaining that the public sector squeeze much commented on and debated has hardly started, whilst the private sector squeeze thanks to inflation and tax rises is tough. The latest figures support those forecasts. Over the last year public spending rose more than 5% in cash terms, was up in real terms…
To be fair, Cameron does have to contend with British political realities. Also, there’s no doubt that clearing up the mess he was left by Labour will take time (public spending is almost certain to increase over the next five years). Nevertheless the fact remains that, despite a finance minister, George Osborne, who has a heart that is in the right, flinty, place, Cameron is less interested in the national balance sheet than he should be. To take just one example out of many, he is pursuing a wasteful, ineffective and enormously extravagant green agenda that will heap ever greater burdens on industry, the consumer and, naturally, taxpayer.
And then there’s his decision to increase overseas aid at a time of tougher times at home, something that draws Gerson’s loudest cheers. Well, there can be a pragmatic “national interest” case for (some) aid, and I would certainly agree that some programs can represent good value. Nevertheless, it’s a bit much for Gerson to claim that Cameron’s spending of other people’s borrowed money helps makes the British prime minister, if I can manage to retype the phrase before nausea overcomes me, “a leader of conscience”.
Bottom line: The GOP badly needs help with what it is doing on the budget, but David Cameron is not the person to whom they should be turning for advice.