Taking the Spin Out of the Economic and Fiscal Update:

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) has released "Taking the Spin Out of the Economic and Fiscal Update: A Guide to the Numbers" by Ellen Russell.

From the CCPA news release:

Monday’s Economic and Fiscal Update is animated more by politics than economics. In the present political circumstances the temptation for the Liberals to massage their financial disclosures in a manner consistent with their pre-election strategy is great.

A new report, released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, provides Canadians with tools to decode the spin. Authored by CCPA Senior Economist Ellen Russell, the report helps journalists and others examine the plausibility of the government’s numbers by providing:
- an assessment of how big the current year’s surplus should be;
- an indication of budget surpluses for future years;
- pointers on how to tell whether the government is spending as much as it seems to be;
- a reality check for the plausibility of revenue and expenditure estimates.

The full report is available from the CCPA web site at http://www.policyalternatives.ca