In testimony before the House Budget Committee Feb. 9, 2011, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke blew the whistle on these projections when he endorsed large spending reductions and fessed up that unless Congress cuts spending dramatically there is no way to grow our way out of a looming fiscal crisis of the welfare state.
It was always unrealistic to suppose that a massive fiscal tightening could leave out welfare, given that it makes up 28% of total spending.
Instead, it went for highly regressive fiscal, labour-market and welfare reforms.
But the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicted in December that the welfare shake-up would increase relative child poverty figures by 200, 000 in 2012-13 and 2013-14.
The issue is how to restore balance between fiscal revenues and expenditures, including for social welfare.
Today, there seems to be ample reason for pessimism and little about which to be confident and optimistic in social welfare, economic and financial, fiscal and financial sector trends in Japan.
Instead, the Conservative leader imagines a welfare system where ministers in Whitehall pull fiscal strings which encourage people towards his party's core values of hard work, saving, marriage and having children (when you can afford to).
Mr Santorum, for one, has long campaigned against abortion and gay marriage, and can also stake a claim to fiscal purity thanks to the part he played in the welfare reforms of the 1990s.
The IMF, however, notes that taking into account automatic stabilisers, such as welfare payments to the unemployed, Germany's fiscal response is not as far behind America's as it appears.
Although the Labour Party is now committed to low level of taxation and welfare spending, it has since 1997 nevertheless used fiscal policy to halt and even slightly reverse the growing inequality that characterised the 18 years of Conservative Government.
Nine areas of priority were highlighted, including reforming public administration, fiscal reform, financial liberalization to allow for more international bank participation in the Chinese economy, social welfare reform, urbanization, agriculture modernization, and technology and innovation.
FORBES: China Crossing The Rubicon As Reform Agenda Moves Forward
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