What Mertle seems to forget is that those who lend us the money to fund our spending don't do it out of love and won't keep doing so (or will at least charge a lot more for so doing) unless we can show we're taking this issue seriously. Contrary to what Brown evidently believed, borrowing isn't a bottomless pit and our international credit rating is now under severe pressure. Unlike Joe Soap who runs up a credit card bill and can conveniently walk away if he can't pay, UK PLC can't be seen to do that - certainly without facing very grave consequences for us all. IIRC we're already spending the equivalent of the entire education budget just servicing the interest on our debts!!! Do we really want that amount to increase??? That's the real world and those who still can't accept that we live in it really need to wake up.
http://www.debtbombshell.com/