Govt announces spending cuts, joined by Italy and Spain
AFP
5/24/2010
via Breitbart.com
The [UK] coalition government moved Monday to cut “wasteful” spending in a bid to placate markets very nervous about the sustainability of massive public deficits, with Italy and Spain also announcing new measures.
In London, the new coalition government unveiled details of some 6.2 billion pounds in cuts as it sought to begin chipping away at a record public deficit.
Italy’s government said it would review Tuesday a two-year package of budget cuts and revenue-boosting measures worth 24 billion euros, or four billion more than planned just one month ago.
Spain’s government, which has already announced austerity measures worth 65 billion euros, moved to bar local authorities from obtaining long-term credit for investment projects to further reduce its public deficit.
The moves follow drastic austerity measures in Greece and Portugal aimed at stemming a loss of market confidence in indebted European economies whose deficits soared during the global slump.
Despite the fragile economic recovery in Britain, the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat government has moved quickly to begin trimming spending in the face of markets spooked by European debt levels in the wake of the Greek debt crisis.
“In the space of just one week we have found and agreed to cut 6.25 billion pounds of wasteful spending across the public sector,” new finance minister George Osborne announced.
Britain’s finances have been ravaged by a record-length recession as well as by enormously expensive banking sector bailouts.
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