The deficit also costs us more than the entire defence budget in interest payments alone. Prima facie, the quicker you cut the deficit, the less it will cost you.
Recession - yes, global. Deficit - well, in 2007 it was already at around £700 billion and IIRC, things were booming. Yet Labour inherited a balanced budget in 1997 so a £900bn deficit requiring massive cuts is definitely caused by overspending - otherwise we'd have a deficit a fifth of the size. Although it has to be said that the right wing government (Rep) in the US were the ones in charge of profligate spending, having inherited a balanced budget from the Democrats, so its not just a Labour party failing - other governments made the same mistake too!
Surely there is nothing inherently wrong with having a different ideology - traditional conservative ideology is that individuals make better choices so want lower taxes and lower public spending, traditional socialist ideology is that the state makes the best spending decisions. To accuse people of "hating poor people" just because they believe in the former is, frankly, a pathetic argument totally lacking in any reasoning. Personally I'm glad I live in a democracy where I get to vote for socialism or conservatism. Even if that means that sometimes I am stuck with a government who backs an ideology I don't like.
Cuts to the public services are desparately needed in some areas - where an NHS "manager" who couldn't manage his/her way out of a paper bag earns a six figure salary and a nurse is struggling to get by? Where a council employs someone as a "walking advisor" (as in, rambling, footpaths etc, not as in a disability assistant), pays them £30k and tells them they don't even need to go on any walks!! People with six figure pensions who retired at 55 and had 8 weeks paid holiday a year? Plenty of waste and cuts that need to be made that could be managed without impacting on "poor people" - lets just hope that the departments sorting out the detail target the waste and not the essentials!