The public finances disrobed.

[yoganmahew]

Seamus Coffey has two excellent posts on public finances:
economic-incentives.blogspot.com … ublic.html

Monday, December 6, 2010
The Exchequer Account is not The Public Finances

There is a widespread assumption that The Exchequer Accounts represent the Government Accounts. This is not true.

The Exchequer Account only represents money which actually passes through the Exchequer Account in the Department of Finance. There are a multitude of government receipts and expenditures that do not pass through the Exchequer Account. These should form part of any analysis of our public finances.

Yet, time and again it is the Exchequer Accounts that get the only media exposure. One reason for this is that they are released every month and are available in a readily digestible form. A second reason is that many commentators and observers simply show no inclination to verify the statistics they use and go with the most accessible information.

Just one example should be enough to highlight the relative uselessness of depending on the Exchequer Accounts as a measure of the overall Public Finances. Government revenue is examined below the fold.

and
economic-incentives.blogspot.com … ciety.html
which has a presentation in it with lots of lovely pictures.
Unless you’re a taxpayer and you think the government spends too much…

Anonymous in the comments of the first post points to Aidan Kane’s spreadsheet of government finances, debt, missing bits etc. which is a many paged miracle:
spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key … l=en#gid=0

[dirtysquatter]

Great link yogan.

[johnnyskeleton]

Of course, there is also non voted expenditure which ramps up the expenditure side.

What frustrates me about Irish politics is that if one party had a look at the non voted expenditure, from quangoes to ridiculous semi state pay, they could cut massive chunks out of the deficit.

[macanrb]

@johnnyskeleton

if one party had a look at the non voted expenditure, from quangoes to ridiculous semi state pay, they could cut massive chunks out of the deficit.

How would they reward the campaigners who put work into getting them elected if they could give them cussy state jobs?