The budget, George Osborne kept saying, was for the "next generation".
The chancellor used the phrase 18 times in the Commons. But father-of-two Ally MacMillan was not buying the No 11 message. "I just hope the Tories won't be around when my next generation is grown up," he said. "This budget is just a lot of bluff and bluster with nothing in it for my family."
Mr MacMillan, from Edinburgh, had some slight grounds for optimism: Mr Osborne announced that he would begin negotiations on a City Region Deal for the capital, after previously announcing £1bn packages for Glasgow and, jointly, Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.
Mr MacMillan said: "Any investment in Edinburgh has got to be good. Although it depends on what they spend it on. After all, they built the trams and then they didn't even go where they said they would. So they wasted all that money on Leith Walk."
Mr MacMillan is a sales consultant for Virgin Media and is a 40-per-cent taxpayer - meaning he takes home more than £42,385 a year in wages and commission.
The chancellor has announced that he will cut the threshold for that top band to £45,000 - although it's not clear the Scottish Government will make endorse this change north of the border.
Mr MacMillan said: "This will not make much difference to me either way. I pay too much tax as it is - although it varies from month to month because I am on salary and commission.
"If I have a really good couple of months, I get hit pretty hard. I'd be quite happy for the threshold to stay where it is. The tax is really steep, though. I can basically offset my basic wage as my tax."
Mr MacMillan, 38, and his partner Sarah, have two children, Ava, six, and Cole, four. He said: "Sarah works in a supermarket Saturdays and Sundays and two evenings a weeks when I look after the kids but with the cost of childcare she stays at home during the day.
"So my main gripe is child benefit. I sometimes creep over the £49,995 a year threshold for child benefit and have to pay it back. But you could have a couple who get £48,000 each and get child benefit. But my partner is on a lower wage and I get thumped for it."
One sweetener for Mr MacMillan's next generation is that they will not suffer from the chancellor's new sugar tax on Coke and Irn-Bru. "They don't get fizzy drinks," said Mr MacMillan.
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