The Government doesn't really want to live within its means - it just doesn't want to raise taxation. And that's fine, but let's not pretend that makes them in any way careful economic managers, writes Greg Jericho.

The economic debate is a shambles at the moment.

We're at a point where proffering supposedly "once in a generation reform" without any details, any costings, and any consultation is apparently evidence of Turnbull's political genius because the states rejected it.

Of course they did - and of course they should have. It was a proposal delivered with such little genuineness that Turnbull might as well have been offering to sell the premiers a bridge in Sydney.

No sooner was that episode over than the the Prime Minister and Treasurer counselled the nation that we must "live within our means", a phrase that deserves a place next to "economic reform" as the most self-serving tripe that politicians utter.

It has come to mean only that the speaker does not want to fund a certain program or policy, and she or he needs a reason to not do so that sounds vaguely logical. While our Prime Minister and Treasurer trotted out that line this past week, on Friday the Australian Government borrowed $800 million at an average rate of 2.04 per cent - that is a rate below the current underlying rate of inflation of 2.1 per cent.

If you could borrow a home loan at less than inflation would you turn it down because "you have to live within your means"?

Scott Morrison would have you believe that you should. On ABC's AM program on Monday he told Michael Brissenden that "we have to live within our means. You can't spend money that's not there."

Except of course when they do - which is often.

The current level of gross debt held by the Australian government is now $419.7 billion - $100 billion more than the $319.5 billion it was in 2013-14. The budget has also been in deficit now for eight years, and is currently expected to be so for at least another three (we'll find out in a month's time if it is another four).

Needing to live within your means always sounds like a winning argument until you actually realise there are a heck of a lot of exceptions to it.

The living within your means line really only ever applies to new spending.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-06/jericho-we-must-expose-the-'living-within-your-means'-spin/7300400