The mid year economic and fiscal outlook (Myefo) released on Wednesday showed a slight increase in the size of budget deficits over the next three years. But no one should get too concerned – it is all just changes in estimates. We need to care more about reality.
As a nation we worry far too much about government budgets. As my boss at the Australia Institute, Richard Denniss, once remarked to me, in the United States the key political speech each year is the State of the Union delivered by the president, whereas here our key address each year is the budget, delivered not by the prime minister, but the treasurer – a person who often is not even the deputy prime minister.
