The sickness as remedy

I was reading these days that José María Aznar, former prime minister of Spain, suggested that the remedies against the crisis ought to be an increase in privatization and a thorough cut in government spending. I spent a few minutes trying to find a logical reason for saying such a thing. From the part of economic theory, it this were a typical recession inside the economic cycle, what you should do is actually the contrary, increase government spending to put more money in the economy and stimulate growth. But well, this is most probably not your average recession. It looks like the worst one since the 1930's, in which the greed of private companies, acting on a poorly regulated economic system, led everything into mayhem. Governments have had to come and rescue the severely damaged financial systems of their respective countries. So how on earth this guy is pretending to find a solution in a cut of government spending?
Regarding privatization, I don't know what else he pretends to be privatized in a country like Spain. Sectors that were firmly in the hands of the government, like energy or telecommunications, have been away to private hands. But that's not only the issue here. Privatization, combined with a cut in government spending, were two of the mainstays of the neoliberal doctrine, since the days of Uncle Milton, and became part of the "recipes" made by the IMF in the light of the Washington Consensus. In these days of crisis, the whole neoliberal model is under strong criticism. The model itself, or the constructs made after it, are seen by many experts as the possible culprits of the crisis. So following Aznar's recommendations would be to use the sickness as remedy. It's like trying to heal a stab wound by stabbing the patient again.
When I look at Aznar and his comments and previous actions, it reminds me of Carlos Menem in Argentina. He privatized everything and made important cuts in government spending (although he used public funds for his own spending). And things look bright and beautiful during his time in office, but the seeds of destruction were planted. It just exploded a couple years later. So my question is: is the Aznar administration responsible for some critical elements on the Spanish economic turmoil that we are living now? Because so far the socialists have been blamed for everything, just like De La Rúa after Menem.