This excerpt originally appeared in National Review Pnline on April 27, 2012.

Austerity means different things to different people. For some people, austerity means adopting a debt-reduction package made of a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. For others, it means adopting a package made mainly of spending cuts — including reforms of social programs. The lack of a distinction between the two meanings of the word — and hence, the distinction between two different debt-reduction policies — is unfortunate and could also explain the confusion over the apparent failure of the British government’s “austerity” measures to address their financial problems.