Not fictional, Armpit, structural.

I will keep it simple for the RWNJs here.

The boom we had 2001–7 generated boom revenues. Do you disagree, Armpit? Good economic management would have seen the govt book the surpluses, do some work on infrastructure, education etc to boost productivity. Not the idiots Howard & Costello.

Into the boom they poured fuel, tax cuts for the rich, pork, wealthfare and the like.

Instead of spending on infrastructure Howard raided the infrastructure Budget to get bigger “surpluses” so he could spend more on buying elections. The boom grew bigger, as did inflation. Borrow to spend became the catchcry and credit cards, personal loans and mortgages were raised and increased with gusto.

These tax cuts etc were built into the Budget—you cannot deny that we are still paying the Costello tax cuts, right Armpit? And the super tax concessions, estimated to cost the Budget $170Bn over the forward estimates. Do you think these are imaginary, Armpit?

CGT excemption, Health Care Rebate etc etc are still being paid too, aren’t they Armpit? These exist (look up Tax expenditures and you will see them in the 2015/16 Budget.

What is missing tho now compared the boom times of H&C? Can you answer that, Armpit? It is boom time revenue, right Armpit? We are paying tax cuts and other items (rorts) that we now do not have the revenue for.

Not only that, the end of the boom saw households realise that they were in debt up to their eyeballs and no more big increases in house values. The savings ratio shot up as housholds deleveraged (paid down mortgages, personal loans and credit cards.) Households also disleveraged, built up savings.

The deleveraging is still going one, John Smith reported people were about 3 years ahead on their mortgage payments.

Into this situation abbott and hokey drew up their disastrous 2014 Budget. The result—the savings ratio increased again, spending fell.

Now we have low wages growth, increasing unemployment (whatever nonsense the ABS figures show) and Morriscum is trying to apply austerity.

We will never dig ourselves out the pit the Howard/Costello, abbott/hokey and turncoat/morriscum have dug without a change in government next year!