The economy is in a much worse state than previously believed, forcing President Park Geun-hye’s administration to revise major 2013 projections downward. Among the projections are one for growth, which has been revised to 2.3 percent from 3 percent at year end, and another for new jobs, from 320,000 to 250,000.

If anyone were to be held accountable for the economic mismanagement, it would be the previous administration, which wrote this year’s budget plan and passed it through the National Assembly on Jan. 1.

But would jobless and other disaffected people refrain from bearing a grudge against the Park administration if the state of economic affairs were found to be as bad as, or even worse than, the revised projections at the end of this year?

Probably not. Its approval rating, which is already low at 41 percent, will decline further should the economy fail to improve. No wonder it is already working on a supplementary budget bill, which it says will be geared toward boosting growth and thereby creating more jobs.

On Thursday, the administration came up with shocking revisions for economic management ― 2.3 percent growth in gross domestic product after an anemic 2 percent in 2012 and 250,000 new jobs, down almost 200,000 from last year.

The new growth forecast is abysmally low when compared with the projection on which the 2013 budget is based. In writing a budget bill in September last year, former President Lee Myung-bak’s administration predicted the economy would grow 4 percent this year. Three months later, it lowered the forecast to 3 percent, without cutting the projected budgetary revenues accordingly.

It should not come as a surprise if many suspect that Korea is following the footsteps of Japan, whose growth started to tumble in the mid-1980s. Quite a few news commentators are already wondering if Korea has entered the “lost decades,” a coinage that originally referred to Japan’s long period of stagnation.

Growth slower than the projection of the 2013 budget will have serious consequences. Most notable among them will be deep cuts in tax and nontax revenues.

The administration expects the shortfall in tax collection will top 12 trillion won. Added will be a decline in the proceeds from the planned sale of equity holdings in some government-invested corporations. The administration expects the proceeds will fall short of the target by as much as 6 trillion won.

Simply put, the administration will have a budget deficit of more than 16 trillion won even before it launches President Park’s welfare programs that are set to cost an annual average of 27 trillion won during the next five years.

To make up the revenue shortfalls, the administration is planning to borrow a lot. A supplementary budget bill it is working on promises to be the second largest after the “super supplementary budget” of 28.4 trillion won, which was drawn up in 2009 to tide over the global financial crisis of U.S. origin. The administration says it will be larger than 12 trillion won. But it will likely near, if not surpass, the 20 trillion won level.

The administration warns that Korea will face its version of a fiscal cliff in the second half of this year if it fails to properly address the budgetary problem in the first half. It expects it will not be too difficult to win the legislature’s approval of a supplementary budget bill, given that the opposition Democratic United Party demanded one ahead of the Dec. 19 presidential election.

But the downside of borrowing and spending will be a huge fiscal deficit. It will now be anything but possible to balance the budget in 2014, as promised by the Lee administration.

Another victim of slower growth is employment. The 250,000 new jobs that are projected for 2013 are half those that are needed if Park is to make good on one of her election promises. An annual average of 500,000 new jobs would have to be created if the economically active population, as a percentage of the entire working-age population, were to rise from the current 60 percent to 70 percent by the end of her five-year term in office, as she promised.

Now the administration finds itself under mounting pressure to delay the launch of many of Park’s pet welfare projects. That is foremost among the bitter choices it needs to make if it wishes to focus on growth and steer the economy away from the trap of long-term stagnation.