macman wrote on Oct 19^th, 2014 at 7:52am:

Gold ... 

St George of the Garden wrote on Oct 19^th, 2014 at 11:42pm:


Howards' spending was neither reckless nor irresponsible, as he spent money he HAD and didn't need to borrow. In fact, he increased spending while at the same time paying off Keatings' $96bn debt! Swan had ample time to make changes before the GFC if he wanted to or he thought it was necessary. He also had a sizeable surplus on which to build. He did neither and instead chose to borrow indiscriminately and waste those borrowings on short-term "fixes" that in reality did nothing to address the problems of the GFC, of which we were largely insulated thanks to Costello's good work. So yeah, it's getting old having to continually re-educate you on the facts but I'm happy to do it in the hope you'll eventually come to your senses.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Oct 20^th, 2014 at 6:40am:



Permanent budget measures funded by temporary revenue, bribes to Saddam, party-political advertising paid for by the taxpayer in a futile attempt to prop up a moribund government, the list goes on.

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Irrelevant. What the money is spent on is more important than how the funds are obtained. If your argument had any credibility, you would be asserting that Howard's payment of a couple of hundred million dollars in BRIBES to a dictator was a sensible use of taxpayers' money.

Governments borrow money all the time. Even Costello - whom you falsely claim paid off debt - never had less than about $50 billion in outstanding bonds at any time. If he "paid off debt" these bonds would have been paid out. They weren't.

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The Howard government stole the credit for Keating's hard work. The budget was well on the way to surplus when Howard won in 1996. The budget would have returned to surplus by 1998 no matter who was in office.

Check the numbers yourself if you don't believe it.

And some of that debt was inherited from Howard, the worst Treasurer this country has ever seen.

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No, he didn't. The surplus was TEMPORARY, bloated by large profits from the mining industry during the mining boom. Once that ended, the true budget position was exposed. Swan inherited one of the biggest fiscal hospital passes this country has ever seen.

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Not for want of trying. He had a hostile Senate and the Liberals opposed almost every budget measure that Swan proposed.

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A lie. Swan's efforts in keeping Australia out of recession when no other developed country could do this were widely praised. You're demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding of Keynesian economic principles.

Swan did make one mistake though that I don't agree with - the same mistake that Costello made: he funded tax cuts out of temporary revenue. Because these Treasurers both funded tax cuts out of temporary revenue, there is broad acceptance that a sensible approach to budget repair would see these last three tax cuts repealed, including Costello's last two.

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More spin and crap. Costello's "good work" was pretty poor in the end. He made no effort to increase the level compulsory superannuation contributions despite being Treasurer for 12 years. By doing that he bloated pension imposts on future budgets and so inflicted an enormous amount of sabotage on future budgets that we will still be seeing 40 years from now. He funded tax cuts out of temporary windfall revenue created by the mining boom. When the temporary revenue ended, the underlying budget deficit was exposed - the hospital pass I referred to earlier.

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Your "facts" are party-political spin that's little more than the dog vomit of regurgitated Liberal party propaganda. You never post anything critical of the Liberal party. Nobody believes your versions of the "facts" because they are far too biased to be credible.