I would not get obsessed with having to produce a surplus, what does it do besides not spending money on infrastructure. Pay off your credit card and take 50 billion $ of the national debt. Then get big business to pay cash for their expansions, and that will be another gigantic chunk of the national debt. Any body who owes money is creating the national debt.

I'm curious about this fascination with a surplus.
Of itself, a surplus means little and certainly tells us nothing about the economic health of a country.
In the fifteen years I spent as ceo of medium to large companies in three countries, i can tell you that my boards would have fired me if I had delivered the corporate equivalent of a surplus.
Shareholders would almost certainly have accused me of having a lazy balance sheet.
I'm especially curious as right now Australia's public debt is so low that if we doubled it, Australia would still have among the lowest levels of public debt in the developed world.
Cheers,
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au

if I had delivered the corporate equivalent of a surplus.
Anthonyve,
Of course they would. I would too. The difference is that a Government is not a company. Way too many don't think of that. A Government is a regulator, an authority which keeps things in place & ensures a reasonable level playing field. At least a good Government would.
As a CEO how much did you have to fork out for unemployed/unemployables, hospitals, Police, social benefits etc. All those things that cost but do not offer much in return.
I would have thought to become a CEO one would know these things. Going by what you're saying & the way my CEO operates this doesn't appear to be the case.

579,
Not to concerned about a surplus ? Crickey ! It's because Labor squandered the surplus that our registration fees & just about every other Government fee has doubled. It's because Labor squandered the surplus our hospitals & other care services have to tighten their belts so they don't have to lay off their back-bone, the useless bureaucrats. Cops put their life on the line because of shortage of funding & you say a surplus is nothing to crow about ? Are you totally off the rails ?

A surplus would only make for leaner public amenities. That is unused money. Money that is not doing anything for anybody.
The noalition are trying to find 70 billion $ to cover their budget black hole.
Hospitals, education, public service, will all be badly effected with their budget. Plus tax breaks for the 1% which will only make things worse.
We don't pay tax for govt; slush funds., to bring out in emergencies like when there is an election on.

"the corporate equivalent of a surplus" - that being a profit.

I'm not desperate for the government to run a big surplus, that just indicates they are taking too much (and possibly not spending in the right places).

What I really don't want is governments that run up large debts, that take from me and waste it on things that are not important, things other people think are nice to have but not important enough to pay for themselves.

R0bert