In August 2010 British Prime Minister David Cameron announced his aggressive plans to slash that nation's growing deficit spending by trimming its bureaucracy, cutting back on its myriad social programs, freezing public-sector wages and even cutting defense outlays.

It was the kind of agenda to make a U.S. tea-party loving fiscal conservative weak-kneed. Just the type of medicine that those campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination say the country needs. Mr. Cameron's coalition has pursued its plan aggressively.

In an Aug. 24, 2010 column, Day Editorial Page Editor Paul Choiniere said the British conservative experiment deserved watching:

"Fiscal hawks say this tough love is exactly what's necessary to get economies moving again and avoid a fiscal calamity. Stop sucking money from the private sector, they cry. But Keynesian economists, who say more government spending, not less, is necessary to bolster a weak global economy, say this is the worst medicine and could pitch not-so-jolly old England back into a deep recession," wrote Mr. Choiniere in his Sunday column.

Interesting to note, then, the recent report from George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, on the British economy. Growth for 2011 will be 0.9 percent, not the 2.3 percent that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition forecast back in that summer of 2010 when it committed to drastic fiscal cuts. As for next year, when the economy, boosted by government spending reductions, was expected to really pick up steam, the forecast is for a meager 0.7 percent growth.

Most economists assessing the situation conclude Mr. Osborne's predictions are optimistic. Many predict England is heading for the double-dip the U.S. has so far avoided.

"Another recession is on its way," stated weekly British news magazine The Economist in a recent editorial. The well-respected publication backed Mr. Cameron's austerity program and still does.

The point is that Republican claims that big cuts in federal spending will generate a swift turnaround in the U.S. economy have no basis in economic fact. When policies put more people out of work and depress demand for goods - even if those are public sector jobs and the goods are government purchases - the economy will slow. Given the fragility of the U.S. economy, that means going back into recession.

This fact doesn't necessarily make that approach wrong. Short-term pain could produce long-term gain if it makes the deficit manageable and boosts private-sector confidence.

But if there is going to be a debate, let it be an honest one.

Another painful reality of the British experience is that swift and drastic government cutting can undermine the very goal to reduce deficits. Because of slow growth, tax revenues in Britain are falling short of projections and unemployment and other social expenditures are higher than forecast, the result being that the government is falling far short of its deficit-reduction goals.

To be sure, outside forces have hindered the efforts in Britain, chief among them the euro crisis that has hit that nation's large banking sector hard. But the United States is not immune to those forces.

This newspaper prefers the approach of the Obama administration. Maintain spending levels in the short term and stimulate economic activity with needed infrastructure projects, while boosting tax revenues on high-income Americans. At the same time commit to long-term reforms that cut spending on big-ticket entitlement and defense programs, the real drivers of deficits over the long haul.

We'll keep watching, but as of now the British experience suggests that's the better approach.