There is one thing for sure reading the Department of Finance’s Future Forty long-term outlook published this week. A significant hole is likely to open up in the public finances. A notable aspect of the Department of Finance’s forecast is that if this trend were to keep going, then the outlook for the public finances becomes a lot more favourable. As the Fiscal Council points out, on current spending trends, the public finances are at risk of tightening much more rapidly. The key point is that, one way or another, the odds are rising that the public finances are going to get tighter and options will then narrow.
