The United Kingdom’s breathless pursuit of austerity under Prime Minister David Cameron was aimed sparking economic growth and reducing deficits. Three years after the conservative government began its deficit reduction efforts, though, it has failed to do both. Britain is now on the brink of its third recession in four years and its economy is still smaller than it was when the Great Recession began.

Persistently high unemployment and that lack of economic growth — caused by fiscal contraction — have left the UK far short of its deficit reduction goals, as this chart from the Wall Street Journal shows:

In 2010, Cameron and finance minister George Osborne projected that their austerity package would by now have reduced deficits from 4.8 percent of the economy to just 1.9 percent. At the beginning of 2013, the deficit stood at 4.3 percent. Still, Osborne and Cameron remain committed to austerity, with Osborne telling the BBC last week, “You can’t get out of debt crisis by borrowing more and more.” But Britain doesn’t have a debt crisis — its borrowing costs are at historic lows. It has an unemployment and growth crisis that a growing number of economists are begging the conservative government to address.

That should be a lesson to lawmakers in the United States, which emerged from the Great Recession in better shape than its friends across the Atlantic because it chose to stimulate the economy instead of cutting spending. Congress is committed now to a similar path of deficit reduction, even though countries that have tried it have entered an austerity death spiral — as they attempt to reduce deficits, they instead reduce growth and inhibit their ability to reduce deficits. The U.S., like Britain, is nowhere near a debt crisis. Still, lawmakers are insistent on cutting spending, even though unemployment is still high, spending has plateaued, and fiscal contraction has already hampered America’s tepid economic recovery.

British Prime Minister David Cameron will use a speech Thursday to reiterate his commitment to the austerity policies that have hampered the nation’s economic recovery since the Great Recession. Great Britain is on the brink of an unprecedented triple-dip recession, but Cameron and United Kingdom finance chief George Osborne have pledged to continue deficit reduction efforts.

Turning away from austerity now, Cameron will say, would send Britain “back into the abyss,” Reuters reports:

However, Cameron will tell his audience he has cut the country’s deficit by a quarter, interest rates are at a record low, exports are reviving, the number of people on welfare has fallen, and there are more people in work “than ever before in our history”.

“Of course, these signs of progress are just the beginning of a long hard road to a better Britain,” he will say.

Britain’s deficit has fallen, but it has done so far more slowly than Osborne and Cameron projected when they began austerity three years ago. In 2010, the British government projected that austerity would reduce the deficit from 4.8 percent of the economy to just 1.9 percent by now. Anemic economic growth and a second recession brought on by those policies, however, have left the deficit at 4.3 percent. The country is now one quarter of contraction away from its third recession in four years.

Austerity has plagued the European Union, of which Britain is a member, since the recession, forcing unemployment to record highs. Britain, however, is not a member of the European currency union and maintains its own central bank, making the conservative government’s continued adherence to deficit reduction all the more confounding. The same could be said of the United States, which is now focused almost solely on deficit reduction even as unemployment remains high, the recovery remains tepid, and evidence exists that the stimulative policies it originally pursued put it on a faster pace of recovery than Europe has experienced.

The conservative Tory government’s austerity policies are pushing the United Kingdom toward an unprecedented triple-dip recession, as the UK’s economy contracted 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. If the economy slumps again in the first quarter of this year, the two consecutive quarters of losses will mark Britain’s third recession in four years.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and George Osborne, the nation’s finance minister, eschewed stimulative policies when the Great Recession began, choosing instead to pursue swift deficit reduction to address the nation’s long-term debt. The result has been unfortunate: as this chart from the Guardian shows, the British economy has now contracted in four of the past five quarters (the London Olympics, which helped the British economy, occurred during the one quarter of growth):

When he instituted the first round of austerity in 2010, Osborne said his package of tax increases and spending cuts would reduce the deficit from 4.8 percent of Britain’s economy to just 1.9 percent. Three years and a second recession later, the deficit is at 4.3 percent. But even as his plan to revive the economy to reduce deficits has led to further recessions, Osborne remains steadfast in his belief that deficit reduction is the correct path to follow:

George Osborne said he would not “run away” from the problems facing the UK economy: “We have a reminder today that Britain faces a very difficult economic situation. A reminder that last year was particularly difficult, that we face problems at home because of the debts built up over many years and problems abroad with the eurozone, where we export most of our products, in recession.”

While the British raced to austerity, the United States turned to stimulus in 2009. Instead of pushing us into a second recession, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act turned around the American economy, which has far outperformed the British economy ever since:

Still, President Obama’s second attempt to stimulate the economy, the American Jobs Act, was blocked by Republicans, and Washington has turned its attention toward immediate deficit reduction since, even as unemployment remains stubbornly high and the economic recovery is far from robust.