Turning phrases in the face of reality

Michael Taft: So we have more austerity and less growth, more debt and less jobs, more spending cuts and less investment – welcome to the Government’s Medium-Term Fiscal Statement.

You have to hand it to the authors of the Four-Year Plan – they can really turn a phrase in the face of reality. Try this one on:

‘The economy has returned to growth. The Government's strategy is to return the public finances to a sound position and thereby create the essential conditions for strong and sustainable employment growth.’

One could write scores of posts on this one simple statement. I’ll do a few but for now what really caught my eye was ‘strong and sustainable employment’ growth. Let’s see what the 4-Year plan means by ‘strong’. You can read the rest of this post here:

Posted in: Inequality • Economics • Fiscal policy

Tagged with: austerity • medium-term fiscal statement • budget

Michael Taft     @notesonthefront

Michael Taft is an economic analyst and trade unionist. He is author of the Notes of the Front blog and a member of the TASC Economists’ Network.