Since the Abbott government came to power on a platform of ‘‘reducing debt’’ and ‘‘paying down debt’’ with the end point of ‘‘eliminating debt’’, it has borrowed, in gross terms, over $93 billion.
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That is about $2 billion a week.
The debt covers the usual running costs of government when revenue is not sufficient to cover the cost of things like defence, aged pensions, other social security, health, giving money to the RBA and roads and the like.
The government has, to date, done nothing to suggest this $2billion a week gross debt binge is going to end as it promised when in opposition.
Losing the revenue from the abolition of the carbon and mining taxes, the cut to company tax, the $8.8billion spending on the RBA reserves in addition to the paid parental leave scheme, roads, defence and the medical research future fund are all big-ticket items that have to be covered.