The #Australia government is not a household or a business, they are the monopoly issuer of our #currency.

Any #surplus they achieve is necessarily money they could have spent on things we need, but chose not to. That's bad.

Do we want a government that taxes more money than they spend?

I don't. I want a government that identifies what needs doing, and spends whatever money required to achieve that.

And taxes based on which parties or activities should not have as much money as they extracted from the economy. Not a fiction of taxation "to spend on" something else.

The federal government should not have a "balanced #budget", they don't have any need to "find the money" anywhere, they issue as much #AustralianDollar as they choose to at any time.

That's what a federal spending bill does: The money now exists. It didn't "come from" anywhere. Stop waiting for taxation!

Stop the #SurplusFetish and pay for things we need!

https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/surplus-vs-deficit-doesnt-matter-its-all-about-the-choices-made/

#AusPol #economics #NotAHousehold

Whether Australia’s budget has a surplus tells us little about the government’s worth – it’s all on the choices made

We are now a month away from the 2024-25 budget. And as with all budgets, the choices made matter much more than any big numbers that get the media attention.

The Australia Institute