Getting spending down

Aside from British budget madness, as Labour and the Tories argue about how much they’d push state spending up, the rest of the world talks about getting spending down. Yesterday, the Swedish press celebrated the fact that their “expenditure reform” (why don’t we hear that phrase here?) is working so well that they have lost their status as the world’s highest-taxing country – passing this dubious honour to Denmark. By year-end, Sweden’s tax burden will be 47.8% with plans to hit 45%.