The "Great Recession" continues to make budgets and deficits major political problems for all governments. The Ontario government will provide its fall economic update next week. Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has his hands full dealing with expenditures as a result of falling corporate tax revenues, 48% last year. Boy that is a big number.
The 2009-2010 deficit was projected to be around 14 billion. This past June the number shot up to $18.5 billion. We will see how big the number is next week.
The Ontario Liberal government cannot be fully blamed for this, but politics is unfair, so they will get plenty of blame. Minister Duncan, who is a smart political operative will have to use all his skill to navigate around the scary size of the deficit and then figure out how to get things back under control.
I cannot predict what Duncan will do, but it will be interesting.
