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Speaker 1: Guess what things are looking up? Futures looking bright everybody

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Speaker 1: not from the budget announcements themselves necessarily, but the treasury forecasts,

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Speaker 1: if they are to be believed and on home more

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Speaker 1: on than a second, will hit just shy of three

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Speaker 1: percent growth next year. It will average two point nine percent,

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Speaker 1: so basically three percent across the next four years. Unemployment

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Speaker 1: back below five, inflation down at two, wages growing faster

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Speaker 1: than costs at two point seven percent. Great, but there

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Speaker 1: is a dip. This is an update on the halfierly

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Speaker 1: the HAFU. There is a dip first to get through

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Speaker 1: of down point eight percent. The government surplus also a

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Speaker 1: fly in the ointment. Despite that average growth of almost

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Speaker 1: three percent a year for the next four years, willis

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Speaker 1: won't in any of these years return the books to

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Speaker 1: surplus and actually start paying down the debt. It's very expensive.

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Speaker 1: Costs us more to service than to defence, police, corrections,

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Speaker 1: justice and customs combined. It peaks at forty six percent

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight and won't come down below the forty

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Speaker 1: percent target band in this forecast period. And you say

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Speaker 1: why I do? I say why not? Net debt doubled

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Speaker 1: under the last lot and your net borrowing is still

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Speaker 1: increasing as a proportion of the economy, and the economy

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Speaker 1: is going to grow. Willis says this would have required

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Speaker 1: harsher cuts, you know, health, education, that stuff. If you

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Speaker 1: were running a business, though, you'd gut the costs, wouldn't you.

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Speaker 1: There's more fat to trim. But Willis sadly is not

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Speaker 1: running a business. She's running a country. You cut too

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Speaker 1: deep and you risk being turfed out in twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: six and the next lot, reversing the cuts you've made anyway,

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Speaker 1: In a way, deep cuts less sustainable politically than smaller,

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Speaker 1: incremental ones. And this is not to take away from

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Speaker 1: the growth track. The question of reliability is a reasonable

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Speaker 1: one to ask. True, he's been wrong before. We know that.

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Speaker 1: The elephant in the White House is, of course, Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: He is to economists what cyclones are to meteorologists, quite

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Speaker 1: hard to predict with accuracy. Trying to nail down an

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Speaker 1: accurate forecast is a bit like trying to whack a

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Speaker 1: pinata blindfolded and drunk. So all of this is to

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Speaker 1: say that, finally, on the whole, you'd have to feel

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Speaker 1: a bit more hopeful about the future of this country

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Speaker 1: today than you did Yesterday. For more from Early Edition

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Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talk Set B

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Speaker 1: from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio