Britain proves the folly of GOP economics

First slash spending. Then watch the economy contract

Robert Shrum

At the Tory enclave of Eton, the exclusive private school whose graduates now dominate the British Cabinet, they drink tea — and politically and economically, it's not terribly different from the faux-populist American brew. So the Etonian Conservatives came to office last year in coalition with the misnamed Liberal Democrats, and together they set about slashing government spending at a breakneck pace, much like Republicans long to do here.

The economic stimulus, which under the previous Labour government had stayed and reversed the recession, was withdrawn. And the policy course that Republicans insist is the single route to prosperity in the U.S. — massive public spending cuts — was afforded a proof of theory across the Atlantic. Conservatives there enacted exactly what Republicans propose here.

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Robert Shrum has been a senior adviser to the Gore 2000 presidential campaign, the campaign of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and the British Labour Party. In addition to being the chief strategist for the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign, Shrum has advised thirty winning U.S. Senate campaigns; eight winning campaigns for governor; mayors of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other major cities; and the Democratic Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Shrum's writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New Republic, Slate, and other publications. The author of No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner (Simon and Schuster), he is currently a Senior Fellow at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service.