There's a lot of this going around these days in Europe. It has to be done to solve the budget crisis that is hitting so many countries. At the same time, by cutting spending, they're also likely to chop any potential for growth in the near term. Every answer at the moment is a bad one and voters are unlikely to respond well to the cuts. At least Germany has finally settled enough to realize that by bashing the rest of Europe, they're only hurting themselves. BBC:
The Spanish parliament has backed a 15bn-euro ($18.4bn; £13bn) austerity package by one vote as the country strives to cut its budget deficit.
The vote saw 169 in favour of the Socialist government's austerity plan and 168 against, with 13 abstentions.
Spain announced the austerity package earlier this month. It includes wage cuts of 5% or more for civil servants and slashes public investment plans.
