One of the reasons the liberals and left deservedly receive a lot of hate is that they play idiotic words and numbers games like this to “prove” how smart they are.

What a fucking assclown douchebag the guy who wrote that tardicle is. He is both falling for the “austerity” propaganda and the perfect vector for said propaganda. Here’s a clue-by-four, goofus: “austerity” was never intended to slash spending — it was always a program calculated very precisely to privatize the resources of the state, to enrich those seen as worthy with redirected government largesse and to enforce neoliberal values both in monetary and ideological terms.

Spending has nothing to do with this, other than it’s important to the neoliberal project that public funds intended for the common weal be redirected to “deserving” private ends and hands and away from public provision.

As someone in the comments points out, during this alleged time of absent austerity the NHS was gutted, uni was made vastly more expensive, and other important services were worsened greatly by diminished funding and by privatization. Which, of course, was the actual goal of austerity — and not any decrease in spending.

Are people born this stupid or does that transformation happen in college? Fuck.