No, sir, I didn't mean it in that context.
I think why the PBO does these forecasts for you and why we do reconciliations and all the analysis around it is so that you can have a rich planning environment, so that you can debate the policy and priorities, short term, medium term, and long term. That's why we do these forecasts, and there are always doubts.
When we do these fan charts that look at probabilities and distributions--it's something that is being done in different parts of the world, such as in the U.S., in the U.K. now, and central banks do it around inflation--basically what we're doing, sir, is we're looking back. What's been the track record of private sector forecasts on the average forecast? We have sixteen years of information. We have four surveys a year. What's our track record to predict, one, two, three, four, five years out? We want you to know that, sir, because this is part of the richness of the environment you're dealing with. That's just our ability to forecast. We're being honest in that sense.
Then I think you should ask us what our judgment is on the risk. How are you dealing with the issues of a potentially weak U.S. economy? People have talked about that here today. Currency risks--people have talked about that here today in the context of QE2, quantitative easing 2, etc. Issues of sovereign credit risk, issues of household debt.... How are you adjusting that distribution of probability of outcomes? That's all we're doing there. So we're trying to give you a rich environment.
To put a number on where the deficit's going to be in 2015-16, as I think Derek said here today...the difference between $5 billion, $10 billion, or $15 billion in a $2 trillion economy is not really the issue. In putting the point of view, he's debating what should be the policy of priorities.
Again, we don't have a model to predict whether or not we'll be abducted by aliens, but it is important to understand the risk that is out there and our ability to track these things and project forward.
Number two, you're quite right, sir, that there's very little difference between the Finance numbers. If you just look at the budgetary balance, in fact, if you break it out and look at revenues and expenditures over the five-year track, on the revenue side it's negligible. On the spending side you highlighted the big differences in operating spending. There are some differences on public debt charges. But all told, if you add it up over five years, you're probably talking about a little more than $30 billion, cumulative in terms of debt, so it's not a big difference.
Again, for us that's not the most important issue. You want to understand the risks that surround those numbers. We want you to understand whether it is cyclical or whether it is structural. Do we have a fiscal structure that's sustainable? So when we make these points, sir, we need more analysis. It's only in that context that you can debate those issues.
In terms of independent forecasts, I made that comment—somebody asked me the question. This should be the policy. I'm not the Minister of Finance. He has a very tough job. I'm not a deputy. But I think there's a certain rigour—and I think these folks know—when you do an independent forecast. When you break out the economy, what's happening in this quarter or that quarter? You do the medium term. It is helpful to do that. There's something lost when you lose that rigour. We don't want to lose what we do. We work with the average private sector forecast. We want to keep that. It's fine for the Department of Finance, if they wanted to have their own view. I think PBO should have its own view eventually some day, too, in terms of the economy, and come to these sorts of meetings and basically deconstruct that view for you.