On the Budget

It was budget day today. Usually this sort of thing happens in April but since we had that election thing and then that economic update thing and what I've starting referring to as "The Coalition Debacle of 2008" the government felt that it was in the best interest of Parliament to take a little break and come back with this. Yup, that's 343 pages of what I like to call "How We Plan to Waste Your Money". There are 4 pages of Table of Contents.

I don't usually even looking at the budget because no one cares about the details, what I want to know is how you're going to spend the 1/3 of my income that you steal from me annually. In case you couldn't tell I'm incredibly bitter about frivolous government spending. Don't get me wrong the government does need to spend money on some things but there are things that the government need not and should not touch. 

First and foremost I wonder why the government has taken and "unprecedented consultative effort" to create this budget. Some one want to tell me what all of the past budget consultation meetings have been about? How is it that they managed to get more input in a shorter amount of time to release their budget 3 month early? 

The thing that gets me the most is the $85 Billion dollar deficit. Any one remember why we're dealing with this whole global economic crisis? Likely because people have been taking on HUGE amounts of debt for years by living beyond their means. And here comes our government to save us, by doing the exact same thing! 

But here are some things I DO like about the budget: 

-income tax cuts. Increasing the basic exemption and the upper levels of the two lowest brackets. Good move government. Leave me more money to make decisions with. 

- business tax cuts. If they're paying less taxes they can afford to keep more people. 

- $1.5 billion for job training. 

I'm sure if I wanted to read the whole thing I could find some other good stuff but right now I think I've said enough.