Charlie Rose Talks to U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne

You’ve been out defending Britain’s deficit-reduction plan.
I’m here saying to both the Americans and the Brits that we don’t have to accept, as countries, secular stagnation, long-term decline. Our best days can be ahead of us if we’ve got clear economic plans to get on top of our debts and back enterprise and back innovation. I’m really taking on the pessimists who say we had to spend our way out of crisis—and who now say we have to spend our way out of stagnation.

Britain is planning further budget cuts. How will you accomplish that?
Principally by reducing government spending, dealing with costly welfare entitlements. You’ve also got to make sure that wealthy people pay their taxes. So we are unapologetic in dealing with aggressive tax planning. What I don’t think you want to be doing is putting up taxes on businesses or people’s incomes that would hit people’s cost of living and also make our country uncompetitive. Britain thrives by being an open place that’s now attracting a huge amount of investment.