Promises, promises is all we ever get on federal Budget To get to the point of pretending to predict a surplus in four years, Treasurer Chris Bowen has to produce half-credible spending cuts and tax increases in his pre-election economic statement. ON Friday, the Treasurer Chris Bowen made the first formal promise of the Government's phony election campaign. That's the election campaign you have when you can still use taxpayer money to pay for party political advertising, dressed up as "government information." And boy, we've seen plenty of that. From stopping the boats, to disability care, to Gonski education spending. All promises, promises, and not one delivered or arguably even deliverable. Stripped to its essentials, Bowen's promise was there would be no budget surpluses under a Kevin Rudd Government. Not only past, from the period of Rudd Mark One, as we know. But in the future of Rudd Mark Two also. Bowen said on Friday that the Government intended to stick by its commitment to achieve a budget surplus by 2016-17. Now those words fell a bit short of the absolute and endlessly repeated affirmations of his predecessor Wayne Swan and the former prime minister Julia Gillard that there would be a surplus in 2012-13. Until, of course, there wasn't, as the promise and surplus drowned in a $20 billion sea of red ink. What got missed by the bulk of the media on Friday, and yesterday, as it also got missed at budget time in May, was what a 2016-17 surplus target date really means. It means if the Government got re-elected, it would deliver budget deficits in every year of its term. Because the next election would be in late-2016 and the budget for the just completed 2015-16 year would have been in deficit. Along, obviously, with the two years prior. At the very, most hopeful, best, in May of that year, that Rudd-Bowen government would have promised a surplus for the 2016-17 year. But voters would be going to the polls in 2016 after three years of a Rudd-Bowen government. And every one of those three years would have had a budget in deficit. A spokesman for Bowen apparently later "clarified" his commitment, by adding that the government still intended to bring the budget into "balance" by the preceding 2015-16 year. This re-stated what the previous treasurer had said at budget time. That the budget was on the way "back to balance in 2015-16 and surplus by 2016-17." In May, Swan at least had the good sense not to trumpet the utterly meaningless bottom line figure projected for 2015-16, which didn't even amount to $1 billion, as a real surplus. In a $400 billion-plus budget, that number was not even big enough to be a rounding error. Bowen's fiscal body language suggests, three months later, that now a projected small deficit in 2015-16 could also be described as the budget "in balance." And it suggests the surplus to be claimed for 2016-17 could be even skinnier than Swan's $6.6 billion. That is to say, it will be a rounding error that could evaporate in Treasury's forecasts meeting reality. The bigger point is that Bowen was also admitting there would NEVER be a budget surplus under ANY government led by Rudd. Or indeed, Gillard. That were the Government to be re-elected, by the next election in 2016, we would have had nine years of Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments and budget red ink every month of that time. There would have been nine Rudd-Gillard-Rudd budgets and eight would have been in deficit, adding up to at least $230 billion. And at best, just a promise, that finally, the then current budget would produce a surplus. Believe that and I have a nice bridge to sell you, with fabulous views of the Sydney Opera House. Further, to even get to the point of pretending to predict a surplus in four years, Bowen has to produce half-credible spending cuts and tax increases in his pre-election economic statement. Based on the way the Government has "funded" its carbon tax changes, one has to be sceptical. Bowen claimed dropping the formula for setting private use of company cars at 20 per cent for FBT purposes would generate $1.8 billion in revenue. It seems this is not just any old fiscal magic pudding. Because when the 20 per cent formula was introduced in the 2011 budget, it was going to RAISE $1 billion. Magic. When you introduce it, you raise money. When you get rid of it, you raise more money. The brutal truth is after six years of Rudd and Gillard, the last budget surplus from a Labor government was delivered way back in 1989-90. If Rudd is re-elected, by the time of the next election in 2016, that will still be the last time a Labor government delivered a surplus.