The federal election campaign could be as soon as August and no later than May. So which side is shaping as better at managing the economy?

Sorry, I wont be answering that question. If youre smart enough to choose to read this august organ, youre smart enough to make up your own mind which you probably already have.

The partisan or tribal approach to politics if my sides proposing it, its what I prefer is a common way of economising on thinking time.

But Im paid to scrutinise the propositions coming from both sides, so let me offer some pointers to help those who do want a better understanding of the choice available.

The first point is one that will be forgotten from the moment the elections called: the main instrument used to manage the economy through the ups and downs of the business cycle is interest rates (monetary policy).

So the day-to-day management of the economy is done not by the politicians in Canberra, but by the econocrats at the Reserve Bank in Sydney. Neither side has shown the least indication of wanting to change this.

It means that, apart from making decisions affecting the activities of particular industries (the banks, the live meat export trade) or such minor concerns as the natural environment, the elected governments main means of influencing the broader economy is via its budget: the taxes it raises, the things it chooses to spend on, and the gap the deficit or surplus it leaves between the two (fiscal policy).

Its now clear the election campaign will focus on taxes and government spending. Rather than sticking to the usual approach of making itself a small target against an unpopular government by saying me too to most of the governments policies, Labor is making itself a big target, with various policies the Coalition has opposed.

So in this campaign well be given a wider choice than usual, with each side conforming more than usually to their left versus right stereotypes. Labor will be promising to spend more on health and education than the Coalition, offering bigger tax cuts than the Coalition (in the first few years, anyway), and promising to reduce deficit and debt faster than the Coalition.

Against this, Malcolm Turnbull has used the big tax cuts announced in the budget to position the Coalition as the low spending, low taxing side, compared to Labors big spending, big taxing alternative.

This glosses over the Coalitions own record on tax and spending, but there is some truth to the characterisation.

Remember, however, that neither side is promising anything but a temporary fix to bracket creep, because neither side is confident of its ability to contain the growth in government spending. So its probably closer to the truth to say that, however much Labor taxes and spends, the Coalition will do a bit less.

But how on earth can Labor promise to spend more, tax less and improve the budget balance faster?

Thankfully, we wont be hearing much of the Wheres the money coming from? cry because Labor has a not-so-secret weapon: it has already announced policies to increase tax collections by reducing negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, further reducing superannuation tax concessions, taxing family trusts, ending cash refunds of unused franking credits, raising the top income tax rate by 2 percentage points to 49 per cent, and abandoning the cut in the rate of company tax for big businesses.

These measures should increase taxes by about $30 billion over four years and almost $200 billion over 10 years. Theyve been costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, so theres also likely to be less campaign argy-bargy over the costing of promises.

Labor has matched the governments $530-a-year tax cut for middle and above-middle income-earners and raised it to $928. But its still considering whether to match the second step of lifting the 32.5 per cent tax upper bracket limit from $90,000 a year to $120,000 in July 2022. Its unlikely to match the third step of lifting that limit to $200,000 in July 2024.

This tells us that neither side is particularly generous to genuinely low income-earners, and both have an exaggerated impression of where the middle is.

The big difference between the sides emerges for people earning more than $90,000 a year (which is almost 60 per cent higher than the median income), to whom the Coalition is offering much bigger tax cuts while Labor would actually raise the tax rate on incomes above $180,000, as well as aiming most of its reductions in tax breaks at high income-earners.

So Labor would make income tax more redistributive, whereas the Coalition would make it less so. If that doesnt offer voters a real choice, I dont know what would.

But all is not as clear-cut as it sounds. For a start, both sides are engaged in a tax-cut bidding war while the budget is still in deficit with a rising debt. Both sides are relying on the governments quite optimistic forecasts and projections in the budget. What if they dont come to pass?

Also, what politicians promise and what they can get passed by Parliament are two different things. As Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review has revealed, the likely composition of the Senate after the election fewer, but more conservative cross-benchers - should make it easier for the Coalition than for Labor to get its policies into law.

Ross Gittins is the Heralds economics editor. This article first appeared in Fairfax publications.