A politician, a convicted felon and a journalist walk into a bar ...

A politician, a convicted felon and a journalist walk into a bar and order a round of drinks.

“Put them on my tab; you know I’m good for it,” one of the trio says to the bar staff.

“No way,” the bar staff replies. “We don’t trust you.”

Q. Which of the trio had the audacity to put their reputation on the line?

A. It could have been any of them because it’s not only bar staff who think all three of the above can’t lie straight in bed.

If the pundits are to be believed, the Albanese Government is seriously considering walking away from a pre-election promise to follow through on the stage three tax cuts designed to benefit anyone earning up to $200,000 a year.

Senior government figures are saying publicly that no decision has been taken, but as we saw earlier from their inability to achieve credit at their local watering hole, no one really believes them.

Politicians have never really been loved or trusted, even when they seem to be working very hard to make everyone’s lives better. (I know, shouldn’t this be all the time?) And even when they backflip on what many think is a bad decision in the first place, it just goes to confirm the general view that politicians speak with forked tongues.

If the government does walk away from its pre-election commitment, it will argue the global and national economic circumstances have changed, and delivering a tax cut to millions of Australian workers would be financially irresponsible.

There is a strong argument that the economic conditions, and the global forecasts, were well known to Albanese and his team well before the election. But there was no way they wanted to go into an election campaign as the party opposing tax cuts.

At the very least, they could have given themselves some wriggle room or underlined that the promised tax cuts would need to be reconsidered if the economic conditions deteriorated.

Scott Morrison would have gone to town on the flaky policy, but you would like to think most voters would appreciate you have to live within your means.

Closer to the truth is the heat of the Bunsen burner being applied to the Labor Party belly by those who think it unfair that people who are “well off” are getting bigger tax cuts than the battlers. Income envy is alive and well in Australia.

But more on that debate at another time.

Of more concern to the government, and politicians generally, is that more petrol is being poured on the raging bushfire that is public distrust of their elected officials.

Guaranteed Peter Dutton and his team are already preparing the lines. Albanese can’t be trusted, what they say and what they do are completely opposite, Labor turns its back on the aspirations of millions.

Remember Julia Gillard and the carbon tax? Remember Tony Abbott and the ABC?

Of course, opposition parties will go all out to prove their opponents can never be trusted, so the implications of whichever way they jump on tax cuts will weigh heavily on the government decision-makers in the coming days. Somehow they’ve ended up in a lose-lose situation, so it may come down to which choice will hurt the least.

Politicians aren’t likely to be extended credit at their local any time soon. Then again, neither are journalists.

At least convicted felons can prove they’ve been rehabilitated.