Audacious austerity

Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post has an editorial in today's paper explaining the resurgence of austerity cuts in Britain. The logic is simple: Britain is running out of money, so they're cutting spending. That has prompted apocalyptic descriptions of the cuts. Go figure.

The whole piece is definitely worth a read, but this excerpt where Applebaum includes a description of U.S. thought is especially interesting:

Sometimes the depth of the Anglo-American cultural divide reveals itself in unexpected ways, and this is one of those moments: No cooking show featuring corned beef hash and powdered eggs would stand a chance in the United States. Perhaps for similar reasons, nobody is talking about "austerity" in the United States either. On the contrary, Republicans are still gunning for tax cuts, and Democrats are still advocating higher spending. Almost nobody -- not Paul Krugman, not Newt Gingrich -- talks enthusiastically about budget cuts. Instead, our politicians use euphemisms about "eliminating waste" or "making government more efficient," as if no one had ever thought of doing that before. [Emphasis mine]