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Showing posts from September, 2017

More room for public spending in lead up to election

The 2016-17 Ontario Public Accounts came out yesterday – almost a month early. The Accounts finalize the books for 2016/17 and show that the deficit is down a further $500 million from the last estimate for 2016-17 (which was made in the spring in the 2017 Budget).   The Shrinking Deficit: The deficit is now down below the billion dollar mark to $991 million.  That is a full $3.3 billion less than the estimate made in the 2016 Budget, continuing the long term trend by the Liberals to massively overestimate the deficit.  Contrary to those who have claimed the deficit was insurmountable, the real story is that it has been consistently overestimated for years.       Revenue wobbles: Revenue did beat the 2016 Budget estimate for 2016/17  -- but only by $2.2 billion, 1.6% more than projected. T he spring 2017 Budget estimated that revenue would beat the 2016 Budget projection by a larger figure -- $2.64 billion, 2% more than projected (albeit with a somewhat different accounti