WHICH IS A GOOD ARGUMENT FOR A LINE-ITEM VETO AMENDMENT:

Slashing the state (SALLY McNAMARA, October 22, 2010, NY Post)

The CSR announces $127 billion (81 billion pounds) in cuts -- enough to slash government spending by nearly a fifth. With a few exceptions, the CSR represents a largely conservative agenda -- lowering government spending, cutting welfare, making work pay and reducing the eye-watering $68 billion a year spent servicing British debt.

Part one of the plan can be neatly summed up as "rolling back the state." After 13 years of Labor government, government has grown to the point of bursting. The number of pointless and meddlesome "quangos" (quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organizations) has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous: British taxpayers fund (among others) an Advisory Committee on Organic Standards, a Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee and a Zoos Forum. Not anymore: Some 192 quangos got the ax.

The CSR also slices Britain's bloated welfare bill. A Byzantine complex of work-tax credits and overly generous welfare payments left many Brits wondering whether it was more profitable to get a job or get on the dole line. The savvy Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, set out early on to answer the question once and for all: The state won't be an ATM for the work-shy.

By declaring that "there's no Plan B" after Wednesday's announcements, Osborne sent a message to the markets that Britain is back in business. Hanging the open sign on the shop door and restoring predictability to the UK economy are critical to the second part of Osborne's plan -- private-sector-led growth.