I don’t have too much to say about yesterday’s HYEFU, but two things caught my eye.
The first was a bit of attention on the $6 billion “operating allowance” the government has given itself to increase spending (or, I suppose, cut taxes) at next year’s Budget. It is a big number, but it doesn’t mean a great deal. In principle, the operating allowance covers things where the government has some discretion (whereas, by legislation, tax revenue tends to rise each year as nominal GDP does, and welfare benefits rise each year as inflation/wages do, and without new legislation the government of the day has no choice in the matter).
But governments tend to care about purchasing/delivering real goods and services, and they need actual people to work for them. And when there is inflation, the dollar cost of purchasing goods, services, and labour tends to rise. Governments don’t have to…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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