By DPA,
Sydney : Australians were warned of higher taxes to pay for the cash hand-outs they began receiving Thursday from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 42-billion-Australian-dollar ($26-billion) stimulus package.
“They’ve got to understand that the cheques that are going out now are borrowed money,” former treasurer Peter Costello said. “No one’s going to turn back a cheque are they? But remember this: it’s borrowed money.”
Costello served for 11 years as deputy to former prime minister John Howard and left a 21-billion-Australian-dollar surplus for Rudd when his Labor government took office in Dec 2007.
Costello, the former Liberal Party deputy leader, ridiculed Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner for saying he was losing sleep over the billions of dollars the Rudd government was borrowing to fund the stimulus package.
“He’s apparently not worrying about it so much as to not borrow it,” Costello said. “People are going to be paying for this.”