I'm a defence hawk, but...

How exactly are we going to pay for Australia’s biggest military build-up since World War II, now that we have blown the surplus and gone so far into debt already?   "Kevin Rudd has already announced $100 billion in extra spending, just when his tax revenues have gone through the floor and the national debt will exceed $200 billion."   I fear that if we keep going like this, we'll end up like Great Britain. A country who's own central bank has said has effectively run out of money.   "After the budget laid bare the country's record pound stg. 175 billion ($360billion) level of debt and introduced a 50 per cent top rate of tax, a think tank said yesterday it would take more than 22 years for the public debt -- which Mr Darling forecast would balloon to nearly 80 per cent of national income -- to drop back to 40 per cent. The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that the country should brace itself for "two parliaments of pain" as the Government scrambles to repair the damage caused by the financial crisis and the resulting pound stg. 90billion-a-year black hole in its coffers."

Posted via email from Garth's posterous