Labor’s budget tax cuts make good economic sense – and have backed Dutton and Taylor into a political corner

The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who will give the budget reply speech tonight, and the shadow finance minister, Jane Hume. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

If budgets are about choices, then this was one in which very few choices were made. But the one on tax cuts has made life rather difficult for Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor to match without massively increasing the deficit – or telegraphing huge cuts just weeks from an election.

The budget was not a horror. Austerity budgets always are about hitting low-income earners and cutting back on services that are largely unused by anyone earning more than the average full-time wage. So that is good. But to be honest, there just wasn’t any great ambition.