The budget was the big event of the last week in Parliament and the Chancellor, George Osborne, had his work cut out for him. The overall direction is clear: cutting the deficit. It's estimated that next year our Government will spend £710billion. We will get in, via all taxes, £589billion. So, even with the cuts, we will still spend £121billion more than we get in tax.
That's the amount that gets added to our "national debt" - about £5trillion - this year. The budget showed that we also spend more on servicing the interest on that debt (£50billion in interest payments alone this year) than we do on defence (£40billion) policing (£33billion), social services (£32billion) or housing (£24billion).
If we are paying ourselves for things we can't afford, someone will have to pick up the pieces: our children and their children. That's not fair or progressive. Why should be saddle the next generation with our debts, they are going to have enough problems?
But, amid the difficult times, there was some good news too. 23 million people on the lowest incomes will get a tax-cut as the personal tax allowance is raised to take the lowest paid out of tax. This budget goes further, taking over one million people out of tax altogether, a key Liberal Democrat election pledge being delivered.
The Government also stopped Labour's planned 5p increase in the cost of petrol and, instead, delivered a 1p cut. Petrol has gone up by 18p in just a few months, and looks set to go further, so I think it is right that we acted to help people. It's not much, but imagine what a 5p increase would have felt like.
The Government has hit the banks; asking more from them each year than Labour ever asked. It will help to raise £10billion overall meaning that we can pay for 80,000 new work experience placements and 50,000 new apprentices to help get Britain moving again.
There's the one-in, one-out rule for regulation for businesses which should free them from the burden of regulation. And extra support for first-time-buyers who are struggling to get on to the property ladder with a £250million fund.
It's also a green budget, delivering billions of funding to drive the growth of green technology, and a budget for charities - lifting the value of gift aid and reducing inheritance tax for those who give to charity in their wills.
Finally, and whisper it quietly, the budget talks about taking action to tackle "water affordability pressures". That's water bills to you and me and it's the first time that a Government has committed to action in the budget. That has to be good news for Cornwall where we have campaigned on this issue since privatisation. Of course, the details aren't clear yet. We will have to tease those out over the coming weeks. But overall, and whisper this too, I don't think Mr Osborne has done a bad job at all given the tough choices he faces.
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