The Great Debate UK

from UK News:

Boosting the economy: lower taxes, higher spending or both?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suggested he will push expansionary fiscal policies to help boost the economy. Brown's comments were the latest in a series from him and Chancellor Alistair Darling stressing the importance of boosting the economy, which shrank in the third quarter of 2008 for the first time in 16 years and is expected to contract more sharply next year.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King has also put his weight behind "some fiscal stimulus", just as the Bank predicted in its quarterly inflation report that the economy would shrink sharply next year.

But what is the way forward - tax cuts or higher public spending?

The dividing line between Brown and Tory leader David Cameron is whether to borrow to fund tax cuts. Cameron has argued that Britain's deficit is too high to allow further borrowing. Brown says Cameron's claim that he can pay for his tax cut by savings on welfare benefits isn't realistic.

Tax cutting is a populist measure and it may be tempting for Brown, who no longer appears to be married to fiscal prudence, to go down that road, not least because of the backlash he faced earlier this year over scrapping the 10 percent tax band.