Rudd announces spending cut

A lot of political doublespeak in this article in The Australian.

The budget would deliver a 2 per cent cut to government departments' operational spending.

``We'll have to make significant cuts to a number of existing government programs to achieve that higher surplus,'' Mr Rudd said.

``I can announce today that this budget will achieve a one-off 2 per cent efficiency dividend across government.

Well 2% isn't huge.. but whats really worrying is that it isn't 2% of government spending in its entirety. Only 2% of the operational spending. Kevin Rudd should be a PR spin doctor with his invention of the phrase "efficiency dividend".

And it certainly is a one-off.. just watch as government continues to expand and blow its operational spending by billions more. The number of public servants has skyrocketed and roughly doubled in the past decade.

The budget would increase the child care tax rebate from 30 to 50 per cent and pay it quarterly, at a cost to the Government of $1.6 billion.

Well there goes the savings ! What a waste. Instead of letting parents research and make their own decisions on child care, the government is massively subsidising parents to buy child care services. Heres a novel idea - stop taxing the life out of us and then some parents will choose to return to the workforce !

It will also honour its commitment to help working families under financial pressure.

Ahh of course the mention of "working families". See how similar Rudd is to Howard ? We can expect another decade of middle class welfare and massive tax churn. The government takes ever increasing amounts of wealth, and it allows those who reproduce to keep a large share of it. Wouldn't it be simple to just let us keep our property in the first place ?

It seems Rudd entirely misses the mark.

``Inflation is not just a number on a page, it is not just a bureaucratic statistic, it is a cancer which eats away at the living standards of all Australians,'' Mr Rudd said.

Yep.. and lets ignore the elephant in the room. The RBA continues to destroy our currency and fuel inflation by its reckless monetary expansion. They'll buy any junk these days, take anything as collateral for their bonds, and double the supply of money every 10-15 years.

Why can't we just have a nice budget that halves income tax, gets rid of Centrelink and forces the RBA to return to sound currency. I guess it would be too easy and not grab enough headlines.