It’s something we get told before every Budget. We need to tighten our belts. Costs are up and revenue is down for the Federal Government – we get it every year, and with added hyperbole after each change of government as we get the “they mismanaged the economy” line for their entire first term as an excuse for everything. I’ll get back to why revenue is down in a sec.

So, in preparation for belt tightening 2014 version 1.0, our elected representatives pretty much do what they always and do and come up with a report. Usually they will hire some buddies to write it for them, and that has happened again this time. To make it look more important than ever and make less people actually want to read it, this time it weighs in at 5 kilograms and comes in 5 handy insomnia solving volumes. Now let me just say this. When a 4 page policy is announced 97% of the population will not look at it as it is too long. What chance that Joe & Jane Average will read this weighty tome that makes Tolkien look like a cartoon strip? Since I was being rhetorical I’d best answer that as ZERO. Hell, I am a live away from home person 5 days a week with zero non-online social life at all and even I won’t commit to reading that. Which leaves us with the media to interpret it for us. Obviously the loudest howls will come from those media outlets with affiliation to the opposition parties so I’d suggest reading either The Conversation, Crikey or Get Up for some independent opinion on these things.

From my brief readings so far some of it is acceptable, some of it is dodgy, and the largest component of it is truly bollocks.

Now time for me to go back to why revenue is down. It’s pretty simple and it comes in 2 flavours.

Flavour A which I will call “BumFur Flavour” – tax cuts. We have been given tax cuts by government after government after government. Even when surveys at the local shopping mall said “bugger the tax cut, fix the hospitals and schools” they still gave us tax cuts so they could go to the election and say “the other guys are bad and we gave you a lolly tax cut
‘. Oh yeah, people buy it all the time. “They gave me a $10 tax cut a week“. Yep, then they jacked up the fuel price, train tickets, beer tax, wine tax, your health insurance went up too and somehow you think you are still in front? Moron.

Flavour B which I will call “Bite size chocolate Flavour” – privatisation. We have had highly profitable government run businesses sold off or just dissolved to bring in a single cash injection (in the case of sales) into the coffers. Qantas, Commonwealth Bank, NSW State Lotteries, Telstra, soon to be Medibank Private and the Clean Energy Corporation. Now I hear stupid ideas circulating like privitising HECS debts and the like. Oh yeah, that’s great, that will work brilliantly. I’m sorry, but how stupid are these people? Is it not better to receive an ongoing income than a lump sum once and never again? So here, have a bite size chocolate from the money we raise from selling this profitable government agency and later we will come back and tax the living crap out of you as we have no income anymore. Which probably got spent on directors fees, consultants, travel costs for study tours and the like anyway.

And so next week we come to our Federal Budget where the latest person of limited experience with the real world gets to tell us how we should live our lives. That way we can happily continue to pour massive subsidies into industries run by billionaires and people struggling to get by can have it even harder than they have it now. Because we tighten our belts right? Well, some of us do.

A small instruction for our current Federal Government if I may. Belts go around the waist – not the throat you idiots.