latest newspoll 49:51 labor primary +6% , page-12

"IMF is not all that credible."

Perhaps but Saul Eslake is,

But the Grattan Institute economist Saul Eslake said Mr Howard's statement about spending declining as a percentage of GDP, while technically true, was irrelevant and misleading. Mr Howard rode two booms - in mining and household spending - and as a result raked in ''extraordinary'' amounts of income during its last two terms.

During that period the Howard government had increased spending ''in real terms'' at a faster rate than any other government since the Whitlam years.

But Mr Eslake added he was ''gobsmacked'' the IMF did not judge Gough Whitlam's government as profligate.

''That they didn't regard the 40 per cent plus increase in government spending in 1974 to 1975 under the Whitlam government as profligate … [that's] far worse than anything the Howard government undertook,'' he said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/howard-denies-waste-takes-credit-for-fiscal-health-20130111-2clbf.html#ixzz2HzHONSuw

That he rightly called Whitlams spending as profligate suggests balance and therefore has credibility,little johnny was a big spender.


Raider