Much Littler Britain

The austerity cuts are already taking effect in the UK, and the plan for the next five years is nothing short of disaster.

In June, the government announced its first round of cuts, removing about $10 billion from the current year’s budget.

While that is a drop in the bucket compared to the final goal, the reduction measures have already had severe consequences. Public sector workers across the country, except for the lowest paid, will have their salaries frozen for the next two years. Oxfordshire, facing a nearly $1 million trim in its road safety budget, has been forced to shut down all its 161 traffic speed cameras.

The cuts mean that Nottinghamshire plans to close three recycling facilities and some of its day care centers. And that the city of Coventry, which already cut spending in January, is trying to find $5.6 million more to cut from its current child services budget.

But none of this is much compared to what the country will face when the government issues its long-term budget plans in October. Mr. Mutton, the Coventry official, predicted that the next round of cuts would cost the city at least 10,000 jobs in the public and private sectors. Analysts have estimated that some 600,000 public-sector jobs could be lost nationwide.

Mr. Mutton said that the most recent news — which included the announcement that a multimillion-pound program to build new schools and refurbish crumbling old ones in Coventry had been canceled — had come so abruptly that carefully wrought plans and partnerships had to be torn up overnight.

“It’s impossible to plan,” he said. “We believe in trying to plan our budget for three years, particularly in order to give our voluntary and private-sector partners some stability. But we can’t do that at the moment. We haven’t a clue.” 

Keep in mind that 600,000 lost jobs in Britain is roughly equivalent to three million additional lost jobs in the next five years in America...just from the public sector.

And you know what?  I think we're in for cuts that draconian should the Republicans get in charge.  Want to know what the GOP solution to the economic crisis here is?  You have to look no further than Britain today.