Understanding the Budget Process & Shocking Insights into the “No-Shocks” Budget, 1986

Abstract

My contribution to this tax seminar will be on : “Understanding the Budget Process and Shocking Insights Into the“Non-Shock.” Budget, 1986"—asubjcct which many of you think should be the preserve of economists, and into which lawyers like myself should fear to tread. However, I am extremely comfortable with the subject in relation to my training as a lawyer, because my understanding of law is that legal rules, and norms are expressions of social and economic relations which the 'law expresses. Just as a good medical doctor can only be one who understands well the functions of the human body and not only the use of scalpels and prescriptions that operate on it, so the lawyer must understand the economic and social functions of the body politic for which laws are prescribed.