The deficit--with its attendant demands for austerity and benefit cuts, has created a self-fulfilling prophecy of decline.
"We must avoid European-style austerity — harsh benefit cuts for current retirees and large tax increases that slow the economy to a crawl," Ryan said, noting that tax increases, too, are part of Europe's controversial debt reduction plans.
Taken together with his acceptance of Treasury austerity, the benefits cap, and the need to reform the party's union links, Mr Miliband is diluted to the palest of pinks by comparison with his genuinely red predecessors.
Given the economic and social challenges noted above, these assertions have gained traction with elements of the population as fiscal austerity rarely benefits the poor and disenfranchised in the short-term.
Another dose of conventional austerity — including the welfare benefit cuts and tax increases laid out in this week's budget — is part of what is needed.
They didn't act soon enough; and now their governments have been forced to impose painful austerity measures: large benefit cuts to seniors and huge tax increases on everybody.
The number of people working in the sex industry has increased since 2010, as austerity policies like benefit sanctions pushed more people into poverty.
Britain was never going to slash jobless benefits, austerity or no.Yet, a different lesson can be drawn from that thinly disguised campaign hop to Ohio.
The Paris-based organisation said austerity measures and benefits cuts were more likely to hurt the poor in the UK than in most other OECD countries because its benefits system is more strongly targeted at low income groups.
Since Sept. 15, when tens of thousands of Portuguese took to the streets, the country has seen an unprecedented wave of protests against an austerity program whose benefits have been called into question by a deepening recession and Portugal's apparent inability to balance its books on schedule.
