Howard/Costello budgets were in structural deficit

[deepthought]

Deleted

[Rainbow Moonlight]

Hi DT. i think that what JM said before was that they appeared to be in surplus because Costello counted one off public assett sales as income. Don't know if that is true but I would have thought it was pretty basic accounting not to do that.

The other thing he said was that they counted money received only because of the mining boom as income and shouldn't have. Don't know that I agree re the mining boom income though- might be commonsense not to set up an unsustainable system based on a boom but not sure it is wrong to share the wealth or to count it as income.

How much has HECS contributed to federal revenue? Whatever it is it is a continually increasing base.

[Jovial Monk]

you are quite right, RM.

Mining by its very nature is ephemeral. Remember the analogy with a few weeks lucky run with the lottery tickets?

[Rainbow Moonlight]

All business has peaks and troughs, and increased revenues due to the mining boom were legitimately, in my view, counted as income. (Unlike counting proceedings from selling off public assetts)

Any government when in power would have had a choice as to what to do with that income and various choices could have been made. I do not think that all Howard adn Costello's choices were bad ones.

[Jovial Monk]

I suppose they must have done something, when they weren't thinking, sometime

Consider, though, $400Bn, proceeds of mining boom, put into a big fund. this fund could pay for the Ruddnet, pay for a 40Km squared solar thermal power station that would replace all the dirty coal burning power stations now operating? Instead that $400Bn went in pork and tax cuts, tax cuts now no longer sustainable.

[LeftofCentre]

I do not think that all Howard and Costello's choices were bad ones

You're right RM, they were not all bad - Howard chose to cut his own throat and that of his party with a workplace regime that Australians were never going to accept and Dollar $weetie chose to throw in the towel

[Jovial Monk]

Not that Lefty is biased

[LeftofCentre]

Oh no, not at all

[deepthought]

Deleted

[LeftofCentre]

Deepy,

the first post of mine on this thread to which you responded contains the answer you are seeking.

I'm off camping for a few days - I'll leave you to work out the answer in my post