Spend More, Waste More

Ted Bromund / June 23, 2009

Since 1999, the Labour Government in Britain has been on a spending spree of historic proportions. Actually, it’s been on two of them. From 1999 to 2005/6, expenditure grew at 4.8% annually in real terms. As a proportion of GDP, it rose from 36.3% to 41.3%. Then, for a while, spending stabilized.

But only for a while. In 2008/9, spending surged again, to over 43% of GDP. The 2009 Budget, as the British think-tank Policy Exchange points out, envisages spending rising to 48.1% of GDP in 2010/11. If growth is lower than the government’s highly optimistic forecasts, 2010/11 spending would be 49.2% of GDP. (more…)