The VAT (value-added tax) cut would make little difference to consumer spending, said the outspoken German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, referring to Brown's fiscal stimulus package,
The German minister predicted that the huge debts the Treasury is taking on will be a burden on the British economy for a generation.
The remarks were "an embarrassment for the British Prime Minister, who has repeatedly claimed his plans have set the template that other countries are following," a story in the Daily Telegraph said Thursday.
Steinbrueck's comments on Brown came the same day that the British premier was ridiculed in the House of Commons for declaring that his policies had "saved the world."
The German minister made the remarks in an interview with Newsweek magazine on the eve of a European Union summit, where Germany is set to reject Brown's appeals for others to follow his lead, the story said.
Britain's national debt is set to exceed 1 trillion pounds (about 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars) as the Treasury borrows an extra500 billion pounds (about 750 billion dollars) over the next five years, some of it paying for 20 billion pounds (about 30 billion dollars) of temporary tax cuts Brown hopes will soften the blow of the British recession.
The heart of Brown's new rescue package is the cut in VAT to 15percent until the end of next year, something that will cost the Treasury 12.5 billion pounds (about 18.75 billion dollars).
"Our British friends are now cutting their value-added tax. We have no idea how much of that stores will pass on to customers. Are you really going to buy a DVD player because it now costs 39.10 pounds (about 58.65 dollars) instead of 39.90 pounds (about 59.85 dollars)?"
He said all this will do is raise Britain's debt to a level that will take a whole generation to work off.
The minister also suggested that Brown had panicked by abandoning years of fiscal discipline and budget-balancing policies in favor of Keynesian spending financed by debt.
Steinbrueck even likened Brown's borrowing binge to the practices that helped trigger the current financial crisis.
"When I ask about the origins of the crisis, economists I respect tell me it is the credit-financed growth of recent years and decades. Isn't this the same mistake everyone is suddenly making again, under all the public pressure?"
