Go make your cuts and see if I care!

The government should protect us from each other, foster peace within society, and ensure that everybody has food to eat, that they are healthy and educated, and that they have a bed to sleep in at night and a roof over their head. Other than that, fiscal profligacy can simply no longer be justified. As long as the government provides our basic entitlements, there are few who can complain. We have a stack of crises, the ticking time bomb of debt and the lack of growth that conspire to bring us down. It is time to grin and bear it. The economy is a zero sum game, based on the exploitation of a closed ecological system- the earth. Indistinguishable politicians of left and right alike have found themselves engaged in a battle of top trumps, each trying to boast the best policies for "boosting demand" and "increasing consumption". But what is the social merit in making an already profoundly rich country more greedy than it already is. Increasing GDP is paramount to speeding up our unsustainable consumerist binge that comes at the expense of the type of investment we need to develop a steady state society. The quicker we grow our economy, the quicker the window of hope for a new world of green enterprise and sustainable industry closes. The cuts will help send a shock-wave to consumers that enough is enough. It is time for our economy to entire a state of hibernation, so as to let its immune system recover from decades of "product drugging".

I am probably going to be alive for another 50 years or so, and as such, I am concerned about what those years hold for our way of life. The government is increasing worried about blackouts this decade. We must replace 90% of our electricity generating infrastructure by 2030, and unreliable, intermittent renewable such as wind and solar cannot safely provide more than 10-20% of this. The amount of electricity produced needs to be kept within a small margin of the design capacity of the grid, otherwise the grid either overloads or collapses, resulting in blackouts. Even if we manage to bring a new generation of nuclear plants on stream, and replace our old coal and gas fired power plants as they are due for decommissioning, we face an enormous challenge. It is increasingly difficult to increase the supply of these fuels to meet demand, and the price escalator is already sinking in, exacerbating itself every-time the economy undergoes a growth spurt. And if we do manage to keep the lights on, we will miss the crucial threshold for keeping greenhouse gas emissions within 450 parts per million so as to prevent runaway, uncontrollable global warming.

I am prepared to accept the hard choice between our way of life, and our life itself, at least while we undergo a transition to some kind of more sustainable society. Is the government ready to make these difficult choices to? It seems so. They just aren't telling you why they are making the cuts.