Tag Archives: expenditures
US Budget 2015: Some Quick Thoughts
The Budget of the U.S. Government for the 2015 fiscal year was presented at the White House today and unlike Canada, we are not looking at a balanced budget by 2015. Indeed, the forecast is for a small decline in the deficit but the rest of the decade looks like deficits all the way down. […]
Good Luck Balancing the Federal Budget by 2015-16
Budgets are political and aspirational documents as they lay out a future course for the economy and government revenues and expenditures much as the government of the day would like them to be. Well, the 2013 federal budget is no exception as a bit of additional study of the budget numbers suggests that balancing the […]
One of These Countries is Not Like the Others
Given that the Finance Minister is presenting the Federal Fiscal Update today in Fredericton, it is instructive to review some fiscal comparisons right out of the release of the 2012 Federal Fiscal Reference Tables (which in turn used the OECD Economic Outlook May 2012 numbers for the international comparison). Figure 1 plots the ratio of […]
Ontario and its Physicians: Richer Than They Think No Longer
Ontario’s health minister Deb Matthews is moving into a major battle with the physicians in the process of trying to get health care costs under control as part of the provincial deficit fighting agenda. Deb Matthews has on a number of occasions remarked that Ontario’s physicians are the best paid in the country.
Who is More Fiscally Sustainable: Ottawa or Queen’s Park?
Both the Federal and Ontario budgets are nearly upon us and the key watchword for both is going to be the sustainability of the public finances.
Provincial Government Health Spending: The Equity Dimension
The meeting of the federal and provincial/territorial health ministers in Halifax on Thursday will be preoccupied with the sustainability of health expenditures and the coming negotiations over the renewal of the health care accord. Naturally, the provinces want to ensure that federal transfers continue to rise to meet their needs while the federal government will […]
Ontario’s Public Finances: A Fiscal Primer
With Ontario set to deliver its own budget on Tuesday March 29th, it is useful to provide a perspective on the province's finances given that it is Canada’s most populous province and largest provincial economy. Ontario faces some tough fiscal decision making over the next few years given a set of deteriorating public finances and […]
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