cover image: Prudent budgeting and budgetary process effectiveness in Canada's federal government

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Prudent budgeting and budgetary process effectiveness in Canada's federal government

17 Jun 2009

This achievement continued the trend set by the Liberals toward the upped the ante on the degree of misery to be suffered end of their mandate, although the Conservatives should the government lapse back into deficit in any were willing to make reductions in the GST a signifi- subsequent year. [...] Instead, the government adjusted downward The first of these factors is the government’s focus the average private-sector GDP forecasts, with the on the budgetary balance as the primary measure of effect of introducing the explicit prudence factors fiscal performance. [...] The lack of any evidence for implicit prudence in this -1 spending category may well be the result of the for- mulaic basis of the planned spending forecasts and -2 the relatively even “scatter” of the forecast versus -3 actual variance of the economic and demographic variables on which they are based. [...] In funds provided through the budget process have yet the absence of any centrally driven expenditure reduc- to be allocated to specific departments and where tion or reallocation exercise, the budget rule for setting either delays in making those allocation decisions the greater part of the direct program spending base is cause a portion to lapse or less than the total to take the level establish [...] The weaker the cohesion within the cabinet (or achieve the purpose of “spending” the additional fis- the weaker the prime minister’s control), the greater cal flexibility that has emerged.
government politics budget public finance economy taxation finance fiscal policy debt economic policy government policy parliament government budget government debt forecasting government budget balance federal budget deficit reduction deficits finance, public balanced budget amendment balanced budget budgetary deficits

Authors

Joyce, Michael

Pages
30
Published in
Canada

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