The contrast between the deep cuts to public services in the name of austerity and the increase in the MoD's budget in the name of security could not be starker.
Ministers promoted market-centric reforms such as the right to buy and more flexible tenancies, welcomed institutional investors into the housing market, and pushed through budget cuts in the name of austerity.
Amazingly, however, those most vociferously demanding state and federal budget cutbacks in the name of fiscal rectitude also support tax cuts for those most able to pay.
The ruling party now hopes the European elections will affirm public support for its tenure, which has been marked by strict measures of austerity and budget-cutting in the name of shrinking the deficit.
Budget hawks, in the name of deficit reduction, have proposed eliminating Title X funding for U.S. family planning assistance and, at the same time, slashing U.S. support for international family planning and reproductive health services.
Three months earlier, Mr. Rajoy abruptly broke ranks with his European counterparts at a Brussels meeting by lowering Spain's budget deficit target in the name of Spanish sovereignty.
Budget cuts couched in the name of equality may appeal to some people, but if anything, the trickle-down effect of cutting public services will worsen the situation of the governor's brother.
The New York Times reports that Republican candidates for the presidency want to eliminate certain cases from the court's docket (like same-sex marriage), impose term limits for judges, give Congress the power to overrule the Supreme Court, abolish the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and cut judicial budgets -- all this in the name of ending "judicial activism".
Rather than ensuring the recovery extended to families with children, federal policymakers have undertaken budget reductions that, often in the name of the future of children, paradoxically and disproportionately, cut support and services for children.
Even their bosses, who had slashed budgets and trivialized the news in the name of higher ratings and sound business practice, seemed like earnest preachers spreading the gospel of serious journalism.
