Liberals underestimated six year deficit by over $4B: PBO

An independent study of the Liberal’s projected budget was released today by Yves Giroux.

When the Liberal budget was released in March, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced that the Liberals would run a deficit of $91.1 billion over the next six years. However, according to the PBO’s findings, the projected number is expected to be closer to $95.4 billion.

This is not the first time that Morneau’s calculations have conflicted with the PBO’s.

Last year, Morneau also understated his two-year deficit estimation by $8 billion. According to the Finance Minister’s calculations, the two-year deficit was supposed to be only $18.1 billion, while on the other hand, the PBO estimated a greater sum of $22.1 billion.

The PBO and the Finance Minister have butt heads over a lack of transparency on spending estimates when asked to suppress spending data on April 5th, 2018.

Also according to the PBO, the probability that the government will deliver on its promise to balance the budget is “near-zero”.

On a lighter note, Giroux has also explained that he expects to see the economy grow at the rate of 1.6 percent in 2019.