The OBR published a short note last week showing the impact on growth from the fiscal decisions taken by the Coalition Government. This is not a revelation. The OBR has said before that austerity would have and has had a negative impact on growth, but the chart it produced with this note is quite striking. Here’s the chart.

It shows that following the crash, Labour’s discretionary fiscal policy (that’s active changes to government spending and taxation) had a positive impact on growth of around 0.3% in 2008/9 and 2009/10. Labour enacted a fiscal stimulus, but not a very big one.

It’s what this chart shows about the period after the 2010 election though that’s most interesting. After assuming power in 2010, the Coalition embarked on it’s policy of austerity. When it was formed, the OBR actually thought austerity in the first year would have a bigger negative impact than it in fact did, but it still provided a drag on growth of about 1% in 2010/11. 2011/12 was actually the year when austerity really started to kick in. When the OBR made it’s first forecasts though, it thought austerity would have a negative impact on growth of around 0.6%. In actual fact though, it was more like 1%.

It’s fairly well known now that despite the rhetoric, George Osborne actually responded to terrible growth figures in 2011 and 2012 by easing up on austerity, and this can be seen clearly in the chart above. In 2012/13, the government’s discretionary fiscal policy had a very small negative impact on growth, turning to a very small positive impact in 2013/14.

In 2014/15 though, the year before the election (coincidentally I’m sure), George Osborne’s discretionary fiscal policy made a positive contribution to growth of over 0.3%, which is more than Labour’s stimulus provided after the crash. So growth is only at the level it is now because of the positive impact of fiscal policy, something that many Conservatives don’t want to hear.

We are to believe that more cuts are on the way as Osborne tries to achieve a surplus by 2019/20, but if he goes ahead with the cuts implied by his plans – tax credits being only one part of it – it seems likely this negative drag will continue. Coupled with prospects for growth in the rest of the world looking bleak, it seems unlikely that growth can persist alongside spending cuts. Something will have to give.