Finance committee  I'm not sure I'd use the word “cross-purposes”. All I would say is that it's not providing additional disinflationary pressure at the moment. I think that is correct. Although, in very strict measurement terms, because the deficit actually has been coming down, this year is less bad than last year, if you will.

Finance committee  If you're spending 10¢ out of every tax dollar that you collect on servicing past debts, that obviously leaves you with less to spend on providing current goods and services. The problem that we collectively face now and going forward is that we're going to have growth of the economy or growth of the base revenues of government that will be equal to or perhaps even less than the interest rates.

Finance committee  Yes, that's more or less right.

Finance committee  In real terms, it is up. In real terms, it's actually appropriate that it's up. It's a question of how much and what it is spent on.

Finance committee  Bringing inflation down is going to take time. Once we got off track.... Just as we know from the seventies, it takes time. It takes a lot of effort on the part of the government. It takes a lot of effort on the part of the central bank.

Finance committee  You can lower a single price, absolutely, by providing a subsidy or in a tax. You can change a single price. That's undoubtedly true. Can you change what's going on overall? To change what's going on overall, of course, what is important from the government side is the balance—not a single price.

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Chair. It's a great pleasure to be at this committee not to defend a budget, as I did many times in earlier years, but to discuss one that is to come. It's a very difficult one to come because of the difficult times in which we live. We're in a period of rapid and extensive structural change to which we all must adapt and this budget and future budgets have to address.