This Budget will be perceived as a give away budget - the economists will say, in the circumstances, this reading is justified. I think it will increase the momentum for an imminent and early General Election.
It has to be said that because it's an October 13th budget, we don't know what the out turn of expenditure will be at the end of the calendar year for 2015 so where you get more chicanery in terms of creative accounting, in terms of a loose discipline with politics is, if the Exchequer returns continue to come in, you would see some slippage on expenditure.
The bailout for health at the end of the year may exceed an extra €600 million and the Christmas bonus may be paid in this calendar year; you may get more top up announcements in the here and now.
The political determination comes from the fact that in 1979 when Fine Gael and Labour were last in government, there was a feeling that Bertie Ahern won the next three subsequent elections because they were prepared to raid the public finances. When Ruairi Quinn was Minister for Finance, there was a feeling that he left things in too good an order.
One Labour-insider told me last week that there is a determination not to fall into that trap. "We will not leave it behind us," they said to me. In other words, they won't leave the kitty full for the next government.
This Coalition wants to do everything that they can to make the most of their current opportunity.
They work on the basic political calculation that despite having the most sophisticated electorate in the world - people love to be bought with their own money in terms of promises and votes.
You may have other parties promising to abolish Irish Water. You may have other people promising to abolish the local property tax. The government are determined, and committed to the retention of those charges, but they are prepared to be as promiscuous as everybody else.
Between the Budget and the election, we are entering into a Dutch auction.
The big criticism of that is, what we learned from the downturn is that in times of weak economic performance in the overall real economy is the time when the State needs to be supportive in terms of heating up the economy. We need the rainy day money to do that.
Now that we have the fastest growing economy in Europe, is it wise to pour more petrol on the flames of that?
In other words, instead of being counter-cyclical, we're being pro-cyclical and this is exactly the type of policy that has led to the last boom/bust cycle. So we have to ask if a giveaway is what the country really needs.
What the country still has to pay its debts - the country needs is to move towards a current budget surplus or break-even situation so the debt comes down in real terms. That way there won't be a future drag on the economy if there's a bump in the international economy's fragile recovery - and we won't be caught out with a huge mountain of debt if things slow down again.
