Federal Budget 2016: Treasurer Scott Morrison delivers bunch of IOUs, writes Andrew Bolt

IT’S the “Gunna Budget” — a promise by a scared and clueless Turnbull Government that it’s gunna do the right thing one day. But not yet, writes Andrew Bolt.

For all Turnbull’s puffery, this Budget just hastens our decline, writes Andrew Bolt. Picture Kym Smith

• McCrann: Clear fiscal view at last
• What the Budget means for you
• FEDERAL BUDGET: Your 5 minute guide

IT’S the “Gunna Budget” — a promise by a scared and clueless Turnbull Government that it’s gunna do the right thing one day. But not yet.

Treasurer Scott Morrison said this “was not just another Budget” and he was right. It’s a fraud.

None of the important things you were promised have been delivered in this pathetic document.

Spending restraint? Spending is actually up next year by another $19 billion.

Cutting taxes? This government will grab an extra $21 billion from us next year.

Tackling the debt crisis? The government plans to put another $85 billion on the national credit card over the next four years.

And what about Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s boast that he’d bring a new “innovative” and “nimble” Australia that would grab this “most exciting time”.

Here’s the dismal truth: the fastest-growing area of spending in the next three years will be social security — up an astonishing 16 per cent in real terms — while spending on industry, innovation and science will drop 12 per cent.

The fastest-growing area of spending in the next three years will be social security. Picture Kym Smith

That comparison underlines that we’re fast becoming a country where one half of the adult population struggles to pay for the other half — the 45 per cent of Australians who depend on government salaries, pensions, benefits or handouts for their main income.

And for all Turnbull’s puffery, this Budget just hastens our decline, next year spending $1540 a head on every man, woman and child of money the government had to borrow.

But if this Budget is short on delivery today it’s huge in promises for tomorrow. And here’s where the spin gets mad.

Remember how Turnbull sent poor Morrison to talk up the massive tax revolution they were planning that would cut your taxes, boost growth, cut the deficit and splash cash on hospitals?

“Everything is on the table,” the Prime Minister said. But then he got cold feet and now there’s almost nothing left on that table but a bunch of IOUs.

And so Morrison in his Budget was left to feebly promise the government is gunna cut business taxes to 25 per cent to make them “internationally competitive” — but not until 10 years from now, should Turnbull still be PM.

He promised the government was gunna start repaying our debt — but not for another five years, and even that depended on shaky China not tanking, global financial markets not freaking and the Senate finally passing the kind of cuts it’s blocked for years.

Morrison promised the government was gunna be “lowering the tax burden over time”, but not before he first hit smokers and richer superannuation savers with extra taxes.

It was gunna be “returning the Budget to surplus as soon as possible”, but meanwhile this year’s deficit just blew out by another $2 billion in just Turnbull’s first six months.

As I said, it’s the Gunna Budget. All promise, no delivery.

But some of the spinning of this dud is astonishing. Of course, I feel for Morrison but, really, how can he boast of his “10-year enterprise tax plan” to gradually cut business taxes when this government would need to be elected four times to see it through?

How can he boast of having “made an improvement to the budget bottom line of $1.7 billion” over four years, when government spending in that same time will total a humungous $1858 billion? Talk about a boy with a finger in the dyke.

How can he boast the government is living “within its means” when it’s just recorded the fifth-biggest deficit in our history?

How can Morrison make such a fuss of his tax cut for people earning over $80,000 when that lousy $5 a week or so will be taken back by bracket creep just three years from now?

Of course, this Budget would have been a lot worse if Labor had written it all, and not just big chunks.

But Labor’s still done enough damage with its brazen tax-and-spend spruiking, giving Turnbull and Morrison the idea to copy its plans for new tax crackdowns on smokers ($5 billion), multinationals ($2.2 billion) and richer people saving for their super ($2.4 billion).

Labor also spooked the government into spending $4 billion more on schools and hospitals, as well as into deciding our 12 new submarines be built in Adelaide rather than bought for billions less overseas.

Worse, Labor frightened this government out of making the spending cuts this country needs, leaving Morrison with nothing left to sell but promises to be better next time.

He’d better hope he will get that second chance.

ANDREW BOLT IS A HERALD SUN COLUMNIST