The chancellor, George Osborne, certainly plans more
austerity,
hoping to achieve a budget surplus and a rapidly declining debt - to - GDP ratio
by the end of the decade (four years later than he originally predicted).
Obama intended the prospect of the fiscal cliff's dramatic mandatory cuts in social programs to extort progressive Congressional Democrats into agreeing to inflict severe
austerity by voting in favor of what Obama
hoped would be massive cuts in social programs and the safety net adopted
by the Congressional «super committee» created
by the same bipartisan
austerity deal that created the «fiscal cliff.»