Now that the football season is over, it's safe to use a basketball truism that games are won at both ends of the court - attack and defence. But only on the facile level is that also true of budgets (revenue and expenditure). You have the luxury of a third dimension: tax expenditures. Tax expenditures are the cost of revenue forgone thanks to specific policies. They exist in the land of largesse and favour, of good intentions and lurks, of lobbyists and entitlement. And that "entitlement" description applies to supplicants both needy and well off. I'm a little wary of just what Senator Cormann meant by "ruling nothing out" when interviewed about paying for the war. The finance minister tends to be very careful with his words, unlike the Treasurer, and rarely gives anything a way. Igneous rocks have been more forthcoming in interviews. ( And have never been known to go into a programmed loop about "Labor's unsustainable spending".) So there's a good chance that the Cormannator isn't really considering new taxes, never mind the difficulties he would have with any new tax in the Senate circus.

Besides, I suspect he philosophically enjoys cutting expenditure more than increasing taxes. And cutting spending is the remit of the Finance Department, rather than taxation. So, just for a start, there's a chance to play to the Finance Department's strengths and fight to ditch the "captain's call" maternity leave scheme and some of the silly little games ministers have been playing. Ask Kevin Andrews if he'd prefer marriage counselling or throwing another bomb the IS heretics. The Treasurer, on the other hand, who knows? Having so badly botched the politics of his first budget, Joe Hockey increasingly appears in no-man's land. For all the rhetoric, it turns out he's the treasurer of a big-spending government that's running up plenty of debt on a daily basis. And the circus is only partly to blame. Given the bi-partisan appetite for Iraq 3, there just might be an opening for a calm finance minister to broker a few compromises to get a couple of the better budget ideas through the senate and improve the bottom line by looking into some of those many billions of dollars of tax expenditures that are (hopefully) going to cop a serve from the tax review. Beyond the revenge and posturing, the saner Labor folk know the fuel excise indexation is a completely reasonable benefit for revenue that's of minimal impact on voters unless they're whipped up into thinking otherwise. The Middle East has long been about oil so, hey, what better way to pitch paying for the bombing missions' jet fuel? But there should be a quid pro quo. For Labor to pass a responsible Liberal measure, Operation Here We Go Again could become the excuse to pass a couple of responsible Labor measures – the 15% tax on superannuation fund earnings of more than $100,000 a year and the FBT changes from Wayne Swan's last budget.

The coalition only promised to undo them for the basest of political motives (the usual ones, picking up some votes and donations). Here's a chance to right what you know is a policy wrong. If the taxation review is any good, it will open up plenty of opportunities on the tax expenditures front. And there are plenty, with the family home, negative gearing and superannuation only the biggest and most obvious. Winding back some of the lurks and perks can escape the "big new tax" label – but would still annoy many vested interests. Stuff 'em. The coalition's economic credibility will continue to crumble if it relies on dealing with the populists and sundry ratbags in the circus to get budget measures passed. But it would take some genuine leadership on both sides to compromise with the opposition to legislate changes we need. Alas, that leadership isn't particularly obvious.

John Kenneth Galbraith wrote an insightful summary of the fascination of politics in his A Life in Our Times memoirs: "The attractions of politics are manifold, one being its theatre. Politicians play roles that are larger than life and not their own. At any moment they are giving a studied imitation of someone better or more interesting than they are themselves. Or they are enhancing their own public image. They read or hear that they are forthright, sincere, uncompromising, and so they feel obliged to seem. All this is an interesting thing to watch. "A second source of interest is that politics has come to resemble football, soccer, baseball or any other spectator sport. One develops, as to any contest, a commitment to the play and to the outcome. And in politics the rankest amateur managing a campaign or working therein is allowed to believe himself an accomplished professional. Reporters will listen with awe as he outlines strategies that only remotely support belief and as he speaks unblushingly of 'what the American voter really wants'. The reduction of politics to a spectator sport, I might note, has been one of the more malign accomplishments of television. Television requires reporters to seem impartial, and this, reinforced by normal mental lethargy, means that they don't get into issues of war, peace, taxes or welfare. Questions of political tactics and strategy, who is winning who is losing, are safe and comprehensible. So television newsmen are breathless on how the game is being played, largely silent on what the game is all about… "Finally, with all else in politics, there is the thought that one is helping change the world. And there is a helpful element of illusion here. You are always aware of your own efforts, much less so of the efforts of the many who similarly engage themselves. From this comes a pleasantly exaggerated sense of accomplishment. It is why political memoirs must always be read with caution." There are a variety of insights in liberal Galbraith – many more than can be obtained from reading Thatcher and visiting Tea Party types.

Senator Corrman, don't waste a good war. Michael Pascoe is a BusinessDay contributing editor