You posted; "Once spending programs (especially middle class welfare and tax breaks) are entrenched, its usually political suicide to reverse. ..."
Exactly! But there's more; much more!
Under John Howard Australia developed its biggest housing bubble in our history while private indebtedness rose to ~160% of annual disposable income - still rising to record levels as he was given the boot in 2007.
Peter Costello smirked as he bequeathed his economic tsunami to Kevin Rudd; knowing that he had locked up $50b in the Future Fund [that invested it almost all overseas].
Yet some posters on this forum still deny that Kevin Rudd's Govt. saved Australia from the excesses of the GFC and its enduring aftermath.