Despite the huge scale of the €4bn to €7bn planned in deficit cuts, it could after all be a more traditional budget as finance minister Brian Lenihan is tempted again to seek disproportionately large cuts from capital spending on roads, rail and public buildings.

When the budget choices get tougher, the capital expenditure budget lines become easy prey. Lenihan may have admitted as much by saying last week that cuts, not higher taxes, must again carry the burden.

Here's what the exchequer numbers tell us about capital spending in the last six years. In 2004, the government spent €5.3bn on the so-called voted capital projects of roads, rail and public buildings, a meagre 1.5% increase on 2003 which, accounting for inflation, represented a cut in real terms in the year. But the €5.3bn spend became €5.86bn in 2005 and then, reflecting the boom times, ballooned to €6.4bn, a huge 11.% increase on the year. It didn't stop there. In the 2007 election year, capital spending ballooned again to €7.56bn, an 18% increase on the previous year. The crisis was already setting in but, by 2008, the capital spend peaked at over €8.5bn. As the cuts set in, this was cut to €6.9bn last year which, accounting for inflation, brought the real value of the spend back to 2005 levels. So far this year, the government seems to have also done the traditional thing when budgets are under pressure by slowing the amount of capital spend. By the end of September, it had spent only €2.9bn compared with almost €4.4bn spent in the first nine months of 2009.

Every €1bn of capital spend supports approximately 10,000 jobs. Cutting capital spending may be easier than increasing taxes but the effect on the economy may be as savage.