Only by permanently reducing current expenditure can the deficit be curbed and the debt lowered without increasing the tax burden. Since 2000 primary current expenditure has risen by an average of one percentage point more per year than GDP. Its ratio to GDP has reached 40 per cent, comparable to the highest post-war levels. The expenditure mechanisms need to be changed.
In 2006 primary current expenditure still grew by 3.6 per cent, compared with the Government’s budget forecast of 1.1 per cent. There is scope for saving in all the major items of the budget; the revision of expenditure programmes that the  6  BIS Review 56/2007  Government has commenced goes in the right direction.