Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
From October, Australia will start routinely quantifying the benefits as well as costs of federal spending. It’s already shaping up as the new treasurer’s most important legacy.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Unemployment is far lower than predicted and isn’t setting off the kind of inflation seen in the United States. There’s no telling how much lower it can go.
The US debt ceiling is a form of self-delusion: a limit imposed on a borrower by the borrower itself. Australia had one until the Coalition and the Green us, abolished it.
Tally boards publicising the contributions of different suburbs during the second world war.
Australian War Memorial
The attempts at product differentiation that preceded the $18 billion program are all but exhausted.
On one hand, we’re still able to forecast a surplus. On the other, conditions are deteriorating. Treasurer Frydenberg and Finance Minister Cormann deliver the news.
Lukas Coch/AAP
MYEFO contains a long-overdue admission: that low wage growth is the new normal. It’ll take extraordinary spending restraint to make the surplus forecasts stick.
If all goes well, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg might just deliver his tiny projected surpluses, but it isn’t clear why he should.
Lukas Coch/AAP
A big surplus will come. It should be saved for something important, not simply spent.
Newly-elected US Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is co-author of the New Green Deal which proposes massively expanding the budget deficit as a way of supporting both the environment and the economy.
Alba Vigaray/EPA
There are limits on how much governments can spend without earning, although increasingly politicians are behaving as if there are not.
As happened during the last budget boom, the government will spend it (quite likely on tax cuts) leaving little for when things turn down down the track.
Lukas Coch/AAP
History suggests the government will spend most of the extra $10 billion per year that the MYEFO will reveal on Monday. The only problem is, those riches won’t last.