Peter Bazalgette, the chair of Arts Council England, said the money could be saved from efficiency savings within the organisation rather than cuttting arts funding.
First-time buyers who save in a help-to-buy Isa will have their savings boosted with a payment from the government when they decide to buy a property.
Given the huge waste and poor productivity in the public services, there is no a priori reason why these cuts cannot be covered by public spending savings, as Osborne argued.
It booked $1.5bn in savings in the 2013-14 budget from repealing the tax cuts but did not get around to actually changing the legislation.
Searching for savings at the end of its term in government, Labor said it was indefinitely deferring the already legislated changes because the floating carbon price was forecast to be far lower than originally calculated and families did not need as much compensation.
In a further statement issued on Sunday, Cormann said his comment was intended to point out that Shorten could not secure Labor support for Labor's own previously budgeted savings measures.
"There is a world of difference between tax funded benefits and people's own savings.
Our government might succeed in fooling us into believing that efficiency savings are not health cuts.
I know from friends who have a much longer claim-free period, that the savings tend to tail off".
(The free degrees are on top of the discount already offered to all maths and science students, which Labor introduced in 2008 but then reversed in the search for budget savings).
For instance, the budgetary savings could be used to reduce other distorting taxes or to alleviate poverty in a more targeted and efficient way".
