I see a number of ignorant posts about the labor govt not being able to bring the budget back to surplus this year.
Lay off. Seriously. Do you realise what will be cut if they really tried to bring it back to surplus? Education grants, infrastructure, health... What do you do with your surplus anyway? Spend it on the people. There's so much left to be fixed in the country.
I mean of course it can't be like this in the long term, but Aus still doesn't exactly have the largest working population, govt income from tax isn't enough.
Call me ignorant or whatever, I feel as though the current debate about our deficit is more of a political one rather than an economical one.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Getting political
hollered by mishmashmosh at 7:56 PM
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4 screams of joy:
It's Rupert Murdoch and News Limited, of course it's political.
I fear the day we end up with Tony 'policy-free' Abbott as prime minister.
It's not only Murdoch and News Limited, its the 24 hours news cycle overall! The constant need, as the media perceives, for news to feed to the general public means that they'll overblow even the smallest of issues and their consequences. Coupled with the desperate need for attention that politicians have where you'll see them saying anything to make the headlines what results is a more acrimonious debate on inter alia, the budget.
While I do agree with your position and the sentiments expressed in this post, Belle please do be aware that there is always a role for being fiscally responsible, which some people don't believe Labour has been (e.g. mismanagement of the stimulus itself - pink bats comes to mind). Surpluses are the ideal and can be used as a fund to invest in the nation's future - we can look to how useful they were during the GFC when KRudd utilised surpluses accumulated from previous fiscal years to keep the economy going. Without that reserve our fiscal position would arguably be a lot worse now and things may not be looking as good. Norway I believe is also a classic example of why surpluses are also important (if memory serves correctly they have this massive fund that has been built up from surpluses).
However yes, at the moment I do agree with you that there is no pressing need for surpluses and that sliding into deficit shouldn't be a large concern on everyone's mind.
lol tim, thanks for explaining indepth. I know theres a reason why we work towards it, but it's just not necessary right now, as you said.
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