by god - check this out!, page-83

"I will ask again, what is the relevance to today of Howard's past profligacy? "

Its called benchmarking.

I bang on a bit about consistancy,so where at all possible I stick with economists who are consistant,here sual Eslake take,


But the Grattan Institute economist, Saul Eslake, argues that Mr Howard's statement about spending declining as a percentage of GDP, while technically true, is irrelevant and misleading.

''The Howard government in its last two terms was rolling in cash,'' Mr Eslake said.

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, Mr Eslake said, the Howard government increased spending ''in real terms'' at a faster rate than any other government since the Whitlam years.

Mr Eslake did say, however, that 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,'' Mr Eslake said.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/howard-rejects-imfs-big-spender-tag-20130111-2ck3z.html#ixzz2HiLrxgGE

Raider