Government-Michel deserves heavy tube for budget

The government-Michel deserves a very bad report for her begrotingswerk. That said André Decoster, professor of public finance at the KU Leuven, in a blog which Time message.

The (former) governing parties stress that they may not be a balanced budget is achieved, but suggest that the deficit in recent years considerably decreased, from 3.1 per cent (14 billion) of the gross domestic product (gdp) to 0.8 percent (3.6 billion). But that argument punctured Decoster. According to him, the decline of the deficit to a large extent explained by the economic situation, and not by the government.

“What would we think of a cycle tourist who stoeft with his average speed if he the entire trail strong tailwind had, or especially descents for the wheels. That is what the government is doing.”

the Structural deficit

For the fiscal policy really to evaluate the impact of favourable economic growth - the tailwind so - can be neutralized. A better measure is, according to the professor than the structural deficit. “That measure the underlying ability or the wattage in clean circumstances, such as on a bike in a sportlabo”, pull Decoster are metaphor.

And if you go to that structural deficit look“, the government was always under the planning and she moved her self-formulated objective year after year for themselves”, he analyzes. That structural deficit at the end of 2018 (at the moment that the N-VA, the government is left) is 1.5 percent or so of 6.75 billion euros. At unchanged policies, it rises to 2.4 percent, or 11 billion euros. However, the government had decided to budget in 2018 is structurally in balance.