Cutting public sector jobs to reduce spending is not the answer to the Government's fiscal challenges, Premier Paula Cox told a business audience this morning.Speaking to members of the Chamber of Commerce at a post-Budget breakfast at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, Ms Cox said slashing Civil Service jobs would only have increased the public debt in the coming year because of redundancy costs.Ms Cox also said it would be easy to balance the current account account Budget - which is projected to be in deficit again next year - if the Government simply did nothing and she would not consider that a success.Answering a question on why Government had not made further cuts at a time when businesses and individuals were suffering, Ms Cox said: “Further cuts could mean two things: cutting jobs or further cuts to grants. Cutting jobs would mean that more people were unemployed. This would certainly put more pressure on the private sector, which is already rationalising the jobs it has and it would also mean further redundancies.“To make people redundant would increase Government debt this year, because of redundancy costs. Savings wouldn't be realised for another year. It could also mean an increase in spending on financial assistance.“Cutting grants would have meant that the vulnerable would have been further disadvantaged. At a time when people are losing jobs, the Government can't abandon its responsibility to provide assistance, either directly in the form of financial assistance, or indirectly by assisting helping agencies.”Asked by John Lang, of Jardine Matheson Group, when the current account budget would balance, Ms Cox said: “The current account could easily be balanced tomorrow if we decided to do nothing and just stand fixed without any progression.“I think it's easy to make it balance, but I'm not sure that is responsible. I don't consider it a success of being a Finance Minister to have a balanced budget.”