Osborne Is Warned: You Need a Plan B ; Top Think Tank Concerned Over Growth

Summary

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CHANCELLOR George Osborne should prepare an "alternative plan" for the economy in case his austerity package of spending cuts and tax hikes fails to balance the books, a top economic think-tank has said.

In its annual Green Budget, the Institute for Fiscal Studies broadly endorsed the Chancellor's approach and said he would be wrong to use his March 23 Budget to seek to sugar the austerity pill with tax and spending giveaways. But it warned that Mr Osborne may miss his target of eliminating the deficit over the next four years, due to "sluggish" GDP growth and the "formidable" difficulty of delivering cuts on a scale not seen since the Second World War.

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Osborne Is Warned: You Need a Plan B ; Top Think Tank Concerned Over Growth

The Chancellor was right to resist calls to change course in response to last month's disappointing growth figures ...

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