Labour are reluctant cutters, and make a crucial distinction between borrowing for capital spending on hospitals, schools and infrastructure, and borrowing for current expenditure.
However, Ed Welsh, of the LGA, told GMTV today that the money was in the foreign banks to earn interest rather than to be used for current expenditure so the crisis was unlikely to cause immediate problems.
As should be obvious from the phrase "ear-marked for future generations", Norway created an investment fund from its oil revenue stream, that should not be raided for current expenditure, precisely as a safeguard against a time when oil prices might start to drop.
Social benefits have risen from £79 billion to £95 billion over the same period.Take those numbers out of the totals for current expenditure and "other spending" has risen from £186 billion to £210 billion over the same period, a 12.9% nominal increase.
The Department's research and development budget for 1972 73 amounted to £13 million, including £9.3 million for current expenditure.
If the Obama administration covers more people with government-supplied or government-subsidized insurance, the political support will broaden for generous benefits, their continuation and, indeed, expansion of current expenditures.
This would leave little money for current spending, let alone for paying down the federal debt and increasing military and school expenditures.
By the first year of the parliament after next the NHS deficit will equate to something like a further third of current expenditure and this does not include the sums necessary for social care".
In India, Estonia and the Netherlands, for example, these budgetary outlays constitute 0.5, 0.2 and 0.1 per cent, respectively, of current expenditure per student in secondary education.
This consists of all government current expenditures for purchases of goods and services (including compensation of employees).
