Trump steered the budget, and we’re bankrolling it |
As the Treasurer acknowledged on Budget night, “the world is throwing a lot at us”.
Jim Chalmers is certainly right about that. As he said: “War in the Middle East has been pushing up prices, pushing down growth, and punishing Australians”.
That passive construction of “war”, though, is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting.
The Treasurer was forthright about the costs and the impacts of that war and about the uncertainty that continues to surround it.
Of course Australians “didn’t decide when this war began and have no control over when it will properly end”. What the Treasurer was much more reluctant to state plainly was … who did start the war and who has control over ending it.
That brazenly illegal war was started by Australia’s most important security ally. It was started by President Donald Trump. And President Trump is continuing it.
The........