To use a cricketing analogy, the Jamaican Government is batting on what, in the old days, before covered wickets, were called 'sticky dogs' - a rain-damaged pitch on which even the most gifted batsmen struggled and teams were bundled out cheaply.

Should there be any doubt just how bad the surface is, we need only draw attention to recent economic data from the United States and yesterday's broadcast by that country's president-elect, Barack Obama, making a pitch to Congress for his proposed, pumped-up stimulus package.

Last month, 540,000 jobs were lost in the United States. For all of 2008, the American economy shed 2.6 million jobs, the most in 16 years. The country's unemployment rate is 7.2 per cent.

Mr Obama has warned that if things don't begin to happen soon to stimulate the American economy, the recession will deepen fast, and that another three to four million jobs will be lost before the crisis plays itself out.

We don't, however, expect America to see the worst. Congress will give Mr Obama his US$800 billion package of recovery spending, even if he has to make concessions on emphases here and there to satisfy pesky legislators. But even at that, with the global and systemic nature of this crisis, it will be a while yet before there is a broad recovery.

What is already a sharp pinch is likely to become a wind-sucking squeeze for countries like Jamaica. Indeed, although no one has yet articulated it as such, the Government is already facing serious fiscal difficulties, if it has not been elevated to a crisis.

shortfall in revenue

In the first eight months of the current fiscal year, to last November, for example, the Government's revenue fell short of budget by nearly $14 billion, or seven-and-a-half per cent. The tax component of revenue was off approximately six per cent for around $10.6 billion. Critically, the levy paid by bauxite/alumina producers was just over $1.7 billion or 48 per cent below projections.

The bottom line of all this is that even though the Government kept its spending at $13 billion or five-and-a-half per cent below the budgeted amount, after debt servicing the fiscal deficit was around 330 per cent above where Audley Shaw planned it to be at this time in the fiscal cycle.

Clearly, the administration has tough decisions to make for the rest of the fiscal year and in crafting the budget for 2009-2010. It should be bold and tell people that many of its election promises of 2007 will have to be put on the back burner. And with the fiscal environment as it is, we may have to bite the bullet and contemplate new and higher taxes.

But the crisis also provides the Government with an opportunity to become bold and creative. As Mr Obama has done, it must conceive a big idea around which Jamaicans can rally for its potential to lift the country out of this miasma.

'Sticky dogs' often provided great batsmen an opportunity to show their mettle, as was the case with the great Jamaican George Headley who, as C.L.R. James' analyses of his performances on such wickets show, was more adept on those testing surfaces than others of his era.

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