We are not in the least bit surprised that Finance Minister Audley Shaw has not found the state of the national treasury to his liking.

If anything, we are more surprised that Mr Shaw is expressing apparent shock that the money to fund the promised J$1.5-million income tax break is not where he expected to find it.

The minister has told the country, through the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President’s Forum, that the new Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government was relying on the gas tax to partially fund the tax break and fulfil the pre-election promise that is widely seen as the key to its February 25 electoral victory.

He says the gas tax fund has no money because its content was allotted to the hedge fund that was meant to protect the country against high gas prices. Worse, a new debt of US$1.5 billion was created consequent on the PetroCaribe debt buyback.

The clear suggestion is that the JLP fell victim to the age-old trick by governments of painting the most rosy picture of the state of the economy under their watch. The true state of things is not usually known until a new Government takes over and discovers that, as Mr Shaw contended, all that glitters is not gold.

We sympathise with Mr Shaw because we suspect that he is not alone in being carried along by the spin of the previous Administration. After all, our international financial partners, the credit rating agencies, the state watchdog agencies including the central bank and the Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC), as well as the financial analysts were all agog over the performance of the economy, bolstered by the 100 per cent passing of all the International Monetary Fund (IMF) performance targets.

To be fair, the former finance minister, Dr Peter Phillips had insisted during the election campaign that the income tax break could not work the way the JLP had envisaged it. He just did not see it as his duty to explain that the gas tax fund did not have the $3 billion the JLP thought was there.

There are several other promises that the JLP made that involves big spending, such as reduction in stamp duty, retention of no-user fees at hospitals, free tuition at secondary schools and the like. We will not be surprised if the money is not there to do everything.

In an earlier editorial we suggested to the new Administration that it should not try to fulfil all its promises immediately if it found that the state of the economy could not afford it at this time but to do so in a timely manner.

We made an exception for the $1.5-million income tax break because not to come good on that would cause great disappointment, to put it mildly, and a feeling of having been deceived among the more than 100,000 people who stand to benefit.

Mr Shaw has insisted that the tax break promise will be fulfilled, even if not in accordance with the original schedule, in which case it would be done retroactively.

The lesson in all of this is that election promises, even though usually well meant, remain fickle and must be taken with a grain of salt.