Abstract
A government budget should—at a minimum—be a future-focussed plan for how limited productive resources are used. It should also aim to reduce the resource constraints passed on to future generations.
Claims echoing the “there is no money” defence reflect a narrow financial perspective, with little regard to any economic understanding of the true productive resource constraints. Financial and economic objectives must be subservient to desired higher-level objectives (or outcomes), alongside a social contract specifying the guardrails within which all economic activity and behaviour must lie.
The status quo agenda will see public health activities destined to continue as futile exercises to prove one’s case on economic (growth) contributions.
Rather, public health activities (and other public services) should be assessed based on how they reduce future constraints on productive resources alongside meeting social contract obligations, responsibilities, and expectations.