The economy cannot be forced.

If force could make a country rich the former Soviet Union would not have collapsed and people would not be eating their own children out of hunger as in North Korea. China, a one party Communist state, does not hand out cash to its poor for doing nothing. Following the sub-prime crisis in 2008 the US cut taxes and has been reducing entitlements to reduce spending while supporting businesses, such as General Motors. The US has managed to grow, albeit slowly. In Europe, on the other hand, taxes have been raised, government spending slashed and social security reduced leading to increasing poverty, falling consumer demand and contracting economies. In India the Congress is shackled to increased social spending which it started in 2008 to win elections in 2009. Increased government spending led to increased borrowing, increased fiscal and Current Account Deficits, very high inflation, falling consumer demand reducing tax collections and increasing deficits further. The remedy is simple. Reduce deficit by cutting wasteful social spending, reducing the numbers of useless ministries from 53 to 15 and stimulate demand by reducing taxes. The survival of the present government is dependent on bribery. First it increased its seats by bribing voters and then formed a government by bribing various two-penny politicians by making them ministers. Problem is that elections are not due till May next year and the economy is going to collapse long before then. The Congress could have announced new social schemes in this year's budget and called early elections before the crisis hit but politicians of other parties would be most unhappy. They could lose their seats and want to loot the maximum before having to face voters. Also the Congress betrayed the DMK in Tamil Nadu to divert attention away from the Commonwealth Games scam and has fought with the Trinamul in Bengal and so is not sure of holding on to power. Hence it is trying desperate measures to carry on with high social spending without going bankrupt and facing a credit downgrade to junk status. It has increased taxes on every kind of service, levied huge taxes on petrol and increased charges of all utilities such as electricity and water. This has increased inflation and further depressed consumer spending. Car sales have fallen by 25.7% in February from 2,13,362 units last year to 1,58,513 this year. Predictably the response of the Congress has been to use force. First the RBI is being bullied to reduce interest rates, which will only make inflation worse, and second, the Finance Minister is going to meet chiefs of public sector banks to force them to increase lending. Already Non Performing Assets of some banks have crossed 4% to a total of Rs 1.84 trillion. If a whip was the answer to every problem there would be no difference between a race horse and a donkey.