5 billion in volume the deficit of EUR 5

Once is not custom on the eve of a presidential, this is not a budget to win the election but a budget to wisely manage the aftermath of victory that members are getting ready to consider today. The Minister of economy and finance, Thierry Breton, and the budget, Jean-François Copé, defend this afternoon, in the National Assembly, the last Bill of Finance (PLF) of the legislature, but not the less virtuous. The 2007 budget is even the first to claim both lowering taxes (EUR 7 billion), the expenditure (from EUR 2.5 billion in volume), the deficit (of EUR 5.3 billion that voted for 2006) and debt (of 2 points of GDP). Nothing to do with the 2006 budget, in particular, which had dug and the deficit and debt, instead of alleviating them.

The improvement of the economic situation well facilitated the task for the Government. Growth is will be translated, this year, by at least 5 billion euros of tax surplus, which could even become 7, according to several MPs. And it allows to register 13.4 billion euros of spontaneous increase revenues in the 2007 budget. This provides flexibility to clean up the finances of the State, as Bercy is available giving a tour of unprecedented screw to the expense, which increased by 1 point less than inflation. Even the guardians of budgetary orthodoxy, officials of the Finance Committee (UMP), is there nothing or almost to reiterate. The PLF is "solid, serious and just", welcomed the President of this commission, Pierre Méhaignerie. It is "exemplary and conscientious", the general rapporteur, Gilles Carrez said. It had supported the previous budgets but this time, swear, it's really "in good faith."

Look closely, the 2007 budget is not as flawless that it provide the Government and the UMP. If the State credits progress of 0.8 in volume, it is because to substitute more assignments of recipes, which decrease as the column "spending". These levies on revenues will rise by 1.4 billion euros next year, to fund national research agency, OSEO, national securities agency secure... The MP UDF Charles de Courson is pointing, in the parliamentary debate, what he called budgetary sleight-of. The debt must back in relative value, but not in absolute value.

"Manage our own decisions."

Despite the usual facilities, this budget decides by its lack of electoral action. Moreover, apart from the income tax reform and the professional tax, which, well that applicable next year, included in the 2006 budget, to the PLF 2007 tax package contains two times more tax increases than decreases: 1.25 billion euros on one side, another EUR 670 million. Insisting on the tax cuts and deficits, Thierry Breton, and Jean-François Copé do extend little on this observation. But the fact is that this budget closed, more it completes, the tax relief strategy commenced in 2002. It raises the milestones for the after-presidential, those of control of expenditure and tax due diligence. It is "a budget of consistency for the future", welcomes the villepiniste Hervé Mariton. "We will have to manage our own decisions," observed the Gilles Carrez sarkozyste. The majority wants to believe that this budget will to survive, regardless of the following.