I opened the newspaper the other week. "Austerity to last into the 2020s" was the headline - a report predicting the next round of spending cuts. The report was accompanied by commentary from experts and politicians, criticising the cuts, and calling for a return to previous spending patterns. Rather than focusing on how to tackle today's problems, they urged a return to yesterday's funding.
The term "austerity" is a misnomer. It suggests the past decade's spending cuts are temporary and assumes that, once the books have been balanced, we'll return to more "normal" levels of government spending. This looks less and less likely, yet this misconception has the potential to obscure any vision for meaningful reform.
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