Long, long ago, before the Covid-19 pandemic, the pre-election Budget 2020 contained a forecast for general government expenditure in the years ahead.
It forecast that by next year, 2024, expenditure would tip over the €100 billion mark for the first time.
For reasons we all know, that Rubicon was crossed the following year as society was plunged into the biggest health emergency known in modern times.
The State stepped in with a massive fiscal bazooka running a deficit of just under €20 billion that year.
Thankfully, tax revenue stepped in to drastically improve the arithmetic, but, the Big State had arrived; it never really left since.
Next year, general government expenditure is expected to be approximately €113 billion. That figure will change somewhat on Tuesday, depending on what decisions are made in the Budget.
For fans of the "every man, woman and child in the country" school of comparative analysis that means a spend of €21,320.76.
Before you get too carried away, using the same analysis the national debt of €223 billion leaves each of us carrying a debt of €42,075.47. Whatever that all means.
The top-level figure includes not only the voted expenditure of each government department but also the interest payments on the national debt, and pension payments that come from the Social Insurance Fund which is funded through your PRSI contributions.
So, when it comes to Budget Day itself, it's true to say we give an awful lot of attention to a very small proportion of public expenditure.
The focus is normally on the "new" spending and tax package.
This year, as set out in the Summer Economic Statement, the Government intends to spend an additional €6.4 billion.
This is broken down as €3.2 billion to add to already existing spending to maintain services given higher demand from a growing population, and more recently, inflation.
The next public sector pay deal will also come from this pot and any extra expenditure on the National Development Plan.
A figure of €2 billion has been allocated for new spending initiatives and €1.1 billion for tax cuts.
In recent Budgets, there has also been an additional allocation for "temporary spending".
During the Covid-19 pandemic, these were large amounts. Currently, there is approximately €4 billion set aside to cover the cost of accommodating those fleeing the war in Ukraine as well as a declining amount related to Brexit and Covid.
Next year, there will also be another €250 million described as "windfall capital investment" which will be taken from corporation tax receipts and be added to funds under the National Development Plan.
And then there's the cost-of-living measures. And here's where the smoke and mirrors of national accounting becomes a veritable pea souper.
In 2023, according to the Mid Year Expenditure Report which was published in July, the cost-of-living measures set out in last year’s Budget were €3.1bn while those introduced later in the year came to €1.3bn. That's a total of €4.4bn.
The confusion sets in when you try to separate which supports were part of Budget 2023 and which were paid for from supplementary or additional decisions on spending or temporary cuts in taxes.
The report roughly answers this in the round by categorising 60% of the supports as temporary and 40% as permanent.
That means around €2.64bn was spent this year on once-off supports like the energy credits. This year's cost-of-living supports are not expected to be of the same scale. But it’s money, the source of which isn’t easy to spot.
And then there’s the hardy annuals of the social protection payment Christmas Bonus and the overrun in the health budget.
The latter - expected to be over €1bn this year - seems to defy bureaucratic guardrails like the Health Budget Oversight Group to astound and surprise every year.
The €350m Christmas bonus is a particular bugbear of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) which can’t understand why it's not built into the Social Protection budget from the start, as it's been paid every year for the past decade (although not always or in full during the difficult years post-property crash).
So, all eyes in Budget 2024 will be on the roughly €10bn+, that can just about be detailed to some extent next Tuesday.
But there is a much bigger picture. And there are more than a few details squiggled in corners.
The importance of all this can't be understated.
Budget Day is a day when the fruit of your labour comes before your eyes. And there are the implications for what labour you and those who come after may have to do to pay for it into the future. It deserves all our attention.
