But at least the finance minister talks of balancing books and reforms.

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"Everyone's talking about balancing the books but then they spend like crazy people, " said Galliani.

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The government has been able to bring forward, from 2010 to 2008, its self-imposed deadline for balancing its books.

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You need people that can switch from meeting with customers, to balancing the books, to sweeping the floor without blinking.

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Mr Dosanjh, his successor, tried to clean up the mess, balancing the books and putting the ferries up for sale.

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The government, in other words, may be less concerned with controlling spending than with balancing the books by raising extra revenue.

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Now, the government will save some money by not servicing most of its debts, but balancing the books will require further, deep cuts.

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The automatic and deliberately harsh spending cuts have come because the politicians are so far apart they cannot agree to a sensible way of balancing the books.

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The BBC's Mark Mardell in Washington says the cuts are meant to hurt - they were deliberately designed two years ago to be so brutally painful that politicians of left and right would be forced to agree on a better way of balancing the books.

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Balancing the athletic books "shouldn't change academic priorities for the campus, " she said.

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