Last Wednesday, whilst President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was conferring with his Cabinet colleagues about the concluding stages of the military campaign in the Wanni against Tiger guerrillas, in the United States capital of Washington, President Barack Obama, was doing just that with his senior officials. However, the two Presidents had two different reasons.

Many of the problems of the economy arise due to the fiscal weaknesses of the government. The high inflationary pressures, the disincentives for economic enterprise, poor performance in exports, the drain on foreign exchange reserves through large trade deficits are some of the problems whose root cause lie in the imbalance between government revenue and expenditure.