In the United Kingdom, in particular, this collapse in tax receipts was especially alarming since nearly 25 percent of British taxes came out of the financial sector. Little surprise then that Britain's debt ballooned. Of the rest of the increase in government debt, some 35 percent is the direct cost of bailing out the banks. Meanwhile, that antistate whipping boy for the growth in the debt, the fiscal stimulus, amounts to a mere 12 percent of the total. So if you want to blame the stimulus for the debt, you are going to try to account for the missing 87.5 percent of the effect.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 140