Long before the Queensland weather forced Anthony Albanese to cancel his plans for an earlier election pundits were saying the last thing the government should do was to deliver a budget.
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Why? Because after back-to-back surpluses - the first since Peter Costello - any pre-election budget would be forecasting a sea of red ink for years to come.
The gloss has gone off the minerals boom that lifted the last two budgets back into the black and, despite near-record tax receipts thanks to bracket creep, record immigration, and historically low unemployment, government spending has trended upwards over the course of this term.
The government has even come under fire for sucking up so much fiscal oxygen that private-sector spending on infrastructure development and investment has been nobbled.
What the pontificators from the inner sanctum have forgotten is that not everybody in this country is a political junkie glued to the news channels or waiting for the next press conference by the PM, the Opposition Leader or the plethora of ministers and shadow ministers hunting their 15 minutes of fame.
Most voters actually have a life which, especially in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis that is forcing people to work two or three jobs to make ends meet, takes up most of their time and attention.
They only really engage with politics when an election is imminent and they know they will have to vote.
While some opt for the jackass option, numbering the ballot paper from one to whatever in descending order, more considered members of the polity make an effort to find out who stands for what.
It is they, and not the rusted-on adherents of one party or faction or another, who decide elections.
While Australia, fortunately, does not have a US-style "State of the Union" address, the budget is about as close as this country gets.
It is, especially in an election year, far more than just a statement of assets and liabilities, and of income versus expenditure.
The budget gives the Treasurer, in this case Dr Jim Chalmers, a chance to wax lyrical about what has been achieved, what the government is planning to achieve in its next term, and how it will get there.
It is the perfect opportunity for the government to engage with voters. That's no bad thing, given for much of the past year-and-a-half, the Albanese government has been on the back foot with the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, setting the agenda much of the time.
It goes without saying Dr Chalmers, who has been touted as a future Labor leader in the event Mr Albanese does not get the ALP across the line, is not going to die wondering.
He will reaffirm all of the recent announcements, including the $8.5 billion pledged to increase bulk billing, the $689 million to reduce the cost of PBS medicines (from next January), the extension of the energy rebates, changes to the "help to buy" scheme which would make almost all first home buyers eligible, and a further reduction in student debts.
Dr Chalmers is unlikely to stop there. Expect more sweeteners when he fronts the cameras at 7.30pm on Tuesday night.
And where are they going to get the money for that? In the words of Rick Blaine in Casablanca: "Here's looking at you kid".
Or, as de Tocqueville so elegantly put it: "The ... republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money".
The big challenge for Peter Dutton, who has run a very policy-lite pre-campaign to date, is how to frame a budget in reply speech that will take back the initiative. That could be harder than he thinks.
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