As the budget deficit fades from political view, anxiety shifts to the much wider current account deficit. It may signal UK dynamism, but neither financing nor closing it look easy after Brexit.
A $2 billion welfare crackdown is the main contributor to new savings announced by the government to improve the budget by $1.1 billion across the forward estimates.
Labor has unveiled its costings, showing it would have a deficit of around $16 billion higher across the forward estimates than that shown in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
Labor’s weakest flank in this election is economic credibility and it knows it. A combination of the past, including memories of Wayne Swan’s ever-elusive surplus, and the present, with the perception…
The opposition will attempt to strengthen its economic credentials by announcing on Friday a package of savings to help pay for its policies and improve the budget bottom line.
Budget repair was put off till later, and the net impact of decisions in the budget was small, but it will be easier to defend in the coming election campaign than some other recent efforts.
The federal budget deficit from now through to 2018-19 is likely to be $129 billion, $21 billion worse than in the December official budget update, according to Deloitte Access Economics.
Hospitals in England anticipate a £2.3 billion deficit by the end of the financial year. That won’t leave much in the kitty for the proposed NHS upgrade.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen told journalists that since the last federal election, the government has had spending as a percentage of GDP at GFC levels. Is that right?
After a decade of narrowing fiscal deficits, South Africa has borrowed heavily since 2009 to support the economy. The debt pile exposes the country to the risk of a sell-off by foreign bond holders
In just a year, the Abbott government has gone from a radical nation-changing budget to promising a ‘dull’ one. Are we to believe the ideological zeal is gone, or has the survival instinct kicked in?
The prospect of a “debt” tax or some sort of “deficit levy” to assist with the budget bottom line should prompt a clearer debate about the virtues of raising taxes versus cutting expenditure as a means…
Charis Palmer, The Conversation and Kylar Loussikian, The Conversation
The Australian Government should tighten the welfare system for older Australians, adding the family home to the assets test for the age pension and limiting tax concessions on superannuation contributions…