Bloomberg View: George Osborne's Missed Opportunity
Britain's new budget risks making a weak economy even worse
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Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, tinkered busily with taxes and public spending in his new budget, as tradition requires, but left the overall stance of fiscal and monetary policy unchanged. This is a pity.
The U.K. economy is flailing. A new forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility says Britain will avoid a triple-dip recession this year—barely. Expected growth in gross domestic product is just 0.6 percent, down from the previous forecast of 1.2 percent. The budget office predicts a feeble recovery in 2014 and 2015, and says unemployment won’t fall below 7 percent until 2017. “It is taking longer than anyone hoped,” Osborne said, “but we must hold to the right track.”