The Conservative party accused the shadow home secretary of "deficit denial".
"During the period in which she was the chief secretary, the deficit went from £76bn a year to £154bn.
In a thinly veiled broadside aimed at Sinn Féin and the SDLP, the Northern Ireland secretary said "deficit deniers" who think they could "simply go on spending money without any regard to the consequences" represented a "real danger" to public services.
In economic terms, Mr. Clinton's stance was built on a belief, backed most notably by Robert E. Rubin when he was Treasury secretary, that eliminating deficits and reducing the national debt would bring down interest rates and provide a powerful stimulus to the economy.
If you care to bash Republicans over this issue you need look no further than former Vice President Dick Cheney who told former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that "deficits don't matter" when the latter voiced concerns about the size of the federal bill.
In the first sign of major strains within Prime Minister David Cameron's governing coalition over plans for a four-year, $135 billion cut in Britain's annual deficit, the secretary of state for defense, Liam Fox, has warned Mr. Cameron that he could not support the "draconian cuts" being discussed for the military budget.
Vowing to be a pragmatic, bipartisan president, she signed on to lead an initiative with the D.L.C. and welcomed the endorsement of such figures as Robert Rubin, the Clinton Treasury secretary whose push for deficit reduction in the early '90s has made him a lasting figure of revulsion for anti-corporate liberals.
The defence secretary said the £38bn deficit would be eliminated as a result of the government's savings, including redundancies and procurement changes.
Savings reinvestments is just one of the reasons the new Secretary's views on deficit reduction will have to align with Obama's.
In preparing a detailed report for Trump, the agencies will try to "identify every form of trade abuse and every non-reciprocal practice that now contributes to the U.S. trade deficit," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a Thursday press conference previewing the orders.
