Carl Johan von Seth: Fiscal policy becomes a kommittékamel

A camel is a horse designed by a committee. It teaches the Greek-british designer Alec Issigonis once said.

the Swedish fiscal-year 2019 is also a strange animal, with authors from six different parties who made the decision, reserved against each other, agreed in a variety of configurations and incorporated changes in each other's proposals.

It has not been so easy to keep up with. Not to understand the result.

unveiled on Wednesday, complete in any case this creation. The sum of 4.5 billion kronor summarizes the P–MP-the government's changes in the budgetreservation that M and KD got through in december. C and L has negotiated on the current adjustments. To the economic policy of the year is a strange hybrid is thus a result of the messy formation of the government.

If you think that the vårbudgeten still seems a bit empty it is because the format is not adapted for large reforms. Heavy parcels must be saved to the fall.

is still thought of as a time to look forward and map out a path for the coming years. And also in this respect be made whole in fiscal policy.

You could compare with the spring of 2015, when the S–MP government was new and the situation similar to the current. The guidelines in the government's spring fiscal policy bill was a nearly 50 page long description of the economic problems that the parties had identified.

There were analyses and objectives. A kind of long-term order of priority for the legislature.

is different. The guidelines begins with the words: ”the societal problems to be solved.” But the short-leaf which follows gives no deeper understanding of the samarbetspartiernas joint projects. The who had expected to get a glimpse of the new economic policy's soul will be disappointed.

It is not so the lack of searing dilemmas. The Swedish economy has entered a slowdown, and facing several dangers in the near future. Growing tensions in world trade means problems for our export industry. At the same time threatening Brexit.

Is the four parties ready to fend off a deeper decline? How should fiscal policy be designed? The government should prioritise the security, or conversion? Sometimes you have to choose. A ”to-do”list, but the overall idea is no plan.

would involve many difficult trade-offs. In the longer term, it is also domestic dilemmas, not least the demographics, preying on people's answers.

fiscal policy starts from the lowest common denominator of the S, MP, C and L. It is similar to a thin kommittéprodukt.