The communiqué produced by the G20's Toronto summit on June 27 mustered all the blandness that is typical of such documents. The leaders committed themselves to "strong" growth, pleasing advocates of stimulus spending. They committed themselves equally stoutly to the opposite objective, declaring that growth should be "sustainable"—code for the need to cut stimulus spending and focus on deficit reduction.
The two concrete targets in the communiqué are scarcely more exciting. The leaders say they aim to cut budget deficits in half by 2013 and stabilize the ratio of public debt to GDP by 2016. But these goals are couched as hopes rather than firm commitments. And most G20 economies already aim to meet those targets anyway.
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