A silent fiscal crisis?

The ability of government to shrink the expenditures in 2019-20 would severely strain attempts to maintain fiscal discipline

This year’s Budget speech was the first I have seen that, in my memory, has no paragraphs on the fiscal situation which, along with the tax proposals, is at the core of any Budget. However, it outlines the contours of government economic policy more generally, and does it well. It also directly addresses concerns regarding the banking and financial sectors with concrete proposals to tackle the currently troubled situation.
 
In my previous column (Some medium-term fiscal arithmetic, June 7), I argued that the Centre’s fiscal space was severely constrained. It is for this reason, perhaps, that the