Brian Cowen is betting that the economy will improve significantly before the electorate return to the polls, writes Mark Hennessy
Brian Cowen 12 months ago could cut income tax rates and contemplate cutting them further; increase State spending by double-digit figures and cut borrowing.
For months, Cowen has worked carefully to depress expectations, to stress the dangers of uncontrollable global events, to create a frisson.
Politically, he has been relatively successful. Ministers were told to curb their appetites, so that the weeks running up to the Budget were not filled by stories of rifts.
Today, most voters will find, perhaps a little to their surprise, that they are at least not worse off, as long as they do not drive Range Rovers and smoke heavily.
The growth in day-to-day spending will have to drop next year, and it will have to continue to slow further as Ireland enjoys more sober rates reflective of a mature economy.
Though Budget Day drama has been in decline in recent years, Cowen did keep one trick in his bag nearly right until the final moment: the decision to reform house stamp duty rates. A measure that will cost just €190 million, according to the Department of Finance, will dominate headlines, occupy voters' minds and fill the vacuum.
For over a year, the Minister led the charge against such changes, railing against the Opposition and accusing Fine Gael, in particular, of pandering. Yesterday all changed. Change was possible, he said, because it would support housebuilding, not destabilise the market.
Undoubtedly, the changes will be popular. Taxation cuts usually are, particularly since the buyer of an average second-hand house will pay €5,000 less stamp duty. The question remains whether he should have made the changes, whether he should have made them now and whether they will have the effect that he hopes.
Clearly, Cowen was shaken by the sharp decline in housing stamp duties in the last quarter. And he was rattled by Department of the Environment figures that construction next year could fall to 30,000 houses: cutting €2 billion from exchequer finances.
Having grown fat off the excess of the last decade, builders, or at least the big ones anyway, have been deliberately slowing down, intent on maintaining high profits.
For weeks, the major builders have been lobbying Fianna Fáil TDs, while its representative body, the Construction Industry Federation, has turned the screws.
"Conditions are now such that there is a better balance between seller and buyers in the housing market. Price corrections are taking place," said the Minister.
Indeed, they are. And it could be argued that Cowen would have been better off letting them continue, rather than throwing fuel on an ebbing fire.
If the market does recover then stamp duty savings will be nothing other than a mirage for most homebuyers as they will disappear into the pockets of builders and sellers.
If his volte-face does not work and stamp duty revenues continue to head south then Cowen has damaged for nothing his credibility that his word means something.
Construction will also do well out of the Government's plan to build 14,000 social and affordable houses, and the National Development Plan.
The Green Party had to get political successes in the Budget to justify entering government. And it has done so, particularly regarding VRT and motor tax changes.
Fianna Fáil has talked about changing VRT since Charlie McCreevy was Minister for Finance and done nothing about it. Last year, the Department of Finance opposed linking VRT to CO2 emissions, on the grounds that it could create "instability" in car sales and endanger much-needed revenues. However, not only future VRT rates but also motor taxes for new models bought after next February will be tied to carbon dioxide emissions.
The difference a year makes to the exchequer's predictions is highlighted best of all by the Government's future borrowing needs.
Offering a basic economics lesson to TDs, Cowen said the State should run surpluses in good times and deficits at other times, and that infrastructure borrowing was justified.
However, his own spending figures belie the image of Prudence Cowen. Current spending next year will rise by €3 billion, while capital spending will jump by €1 billion. Borrowing is going up by nearly €5 billion.
Despite gloomy predictions, the exchequer will still be in the black next year when day-to-day expenditure is subtracted from revenue to the tune of €5.8 billion.
However, the figures dip into the red when the €11 billion capital expenditure is added, though the shade of red should lighten in the years after 2008.
Nevertheless, the Exchequer will have to borrow €4.8 billion to balance books, if one uses the EU general government balance. By 2009, Ireland will have borrowed €12 billion more than it expected just a year ago. No wonder Michael Somers, the head of the National Treasury Management Agency and the man who will do the borrowing, sat attentively in the Dáil's distinguished visitors' gallery.
Cowen has indicated before that major reforms will have to be made in the public service and that it will have to give a better bang for the taxpayers' buck.
Indeed, it has become a quietly-expressed theme, and one that those working in the public sector would do well to note from a man who could be the next taoiseach, even if he is not one who pioneered significant reforms in any of the departments in which he has served.
Yesterday, he announced that each department will have to cut the cost of delivering the 2008 level of services in the following year.
If they do not, he warned that they would "lose out" in next year's budget. These are tough words. They will need to be backed up by action.