Budget draft appears based on shallow foundations

Finance Minister Zyta Gilowska admitted that the budget does not take into account expenditures related to the decisions made by the Sejm last week, i.e. the tax deduction of zł.1,150 per child and revaluation of some pensions. The government hopes that the tax deduction will be decreased by the Senate. Experts point to the fact that the budget does not make provisions for any unexpected costs and makes excessively optimistic assumptions. "Nobody thinks what will happen if economic growth slows down to 2-3%. Then the government will have to cut expenditure and take back what it recently gave away," commented Rafał Benecki, an economist from ING. The chief economist of Bank BPH Ryszard Petru was even more critical, "It is an exceptionally unreliable budget. It turns out that already at the stage of adopting the draft budget, the deficit may increase by zł.5 billion." Petru added that in his opinion the economy will follow the pattern of the crisis-stricken Hungarian economy within a year or two. (Rzeczpospolita, p, A1, B1; Parkiet, p. 1; Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 8) E.B.