why do governments impose austerity?

[the2real4mafol]

Kasz216 said:

the2real4mafol said:
All I know is that austerity always affect the average citizen the most despite them playing no major part in the economy, you people think that's fair? We may have no choice but to cut, but it should truly affect the people who actually created the debt in the first place. I admit pure spending is not good, but neither is pure austerity. Tax loopholes should be fixed, stuff like Military and public sector bonuses cut, with a small increase in spending of police, education and loans for starting small business.

The problem is that the money in the boom times is never spent responsibly to start with, it's wasted on unnecessary tax cuts and wars, most of the time. We need to make sure debt is kept low in all countries to start with. I don't know if i'm right here, but the recession just seems to drag on and on with austerity

The biggest sinkhole for public debt tends to be welfare for the poor and non working... this is the case in the US and Greece, and was a big factor in bringing down Spain who didn't send more then it took in but quickly tumbled over because of it's high unemployment and requirments to such people once the construction boom collapsed.

Yeah the welfare state tends to be on a balancing act with the rest of the economy. It's there to help only a few people at once, but it becomes a major problem to maintain when a quarter of your workforce is unemployed. Welfare relies completely on tax revenue, but in a recession this is very restricted as much less tax is collected due to fewer operating businesses and less workers. It don't help when you are simply better off from relying on the state than actually working like it seems to be in the UK, I think there should be benefits for the unemployed but not so much that it discourages people from working. 

I don't agree with austerity but if it's done responsibly and in the right areas then I guess it's ok