A plan

The British government unveiled a new spending plan recently that should show the way to the next U.S. Congress. Britain’s new budget will hold government outlays almost constant for the next five years in an effort to close a huge deficit and protect the nation’s global credit.

The austerity budget produced howls from every quarter as advocates of special interests complained it would hurt the poor, the middle class, health care, students, schools and universities, incapacitate Britain’s military forces and so on.

A prominent American economist, Joseph Stiglitz, denounced the plan in the Guardian newspaper for reducing government spending at a time of high unemployment. He argued that the government should be spending more, not less.

But the greater concern is that continued deficit spending will lead to higher interest rates that would choke off economic growth.

That prospect also looms for the United States as it emerges from recession. Britain’s new leadership recognizes that the time to wean the economy from stimulus spending is coming up fast.

The U.S. is not going to get painlessly out of its precarious fiscal situation as subsidies and services are reduced or withdrawn. The sooner Congress attacks our out-of-control spending, the easier it will be over the long term. Britain is showing the way.

— The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C.