Mr English will next week deliver his seventh Budget, with the main Opposition focus being on a broken promise to return the Crown accounts to surplus this financial year.
Mr Little said it was not unreasonable for every New Zealander to want the best for New Zealand.
''We deserve a government in surplus; we deserve a solution to the housing crisis; we deserve vibrant regions; and most importantly, we deserve a plan to diversify the economy, bringing good jobs to all. That's what a responsible government would deliver.''
Only on rare occasions did a single Budget have a profound effect on the economy and on the lives of people, he said. Mostly, Budgets were markers along the way of the government's plans, which usually evolved incrementally and, under the present Government, in response to populist political itches.
This year's Budget was different as it came from a Government with almost seven years' economic management under its belt, Mr Little said.
It also came after four years of ''reasonable'' GDP growth, at a time of low inflation and increasing labour market participation.
But despite those good conditions, it was a Budget that would once again fail to deliver on the defining promise of the John Key-Bill English Government of getting the books back to surplus, he said.
That was not a promise made lightly. In 2008, in the depths of the global financial crisis, officials forecast New Zealand would have a string of deficits. National's chief priority, it said at the time, was to turn that around in short order.
And in the most recent general election campaign, National repeated its central economic policy was returning to a budget surplus this year, Mr Little said.
''They made that promise knowing about the current state of government revenue. They made that promise knowing the Government's revenue projections were worsening.''
Of the $4.5 billion lower revenue Mr English was now blaming for his failure, he knew about $4 billion of that in December last year, when he still claimed a surplus, Mr Little said.
However, National's promise was clear. Good economic stewardship would see the country in surplus and now National had abandoned its promise.
The Government now talked about how achieving surplus was an ''artificial target'' and getting a surplus was '' like landing a 747 on the head of a pin''.
''A lot of effort has gone into glossing over the broken promise. But I see it for what it is - one of the biggest political deceptions of a lifetime,'' Mr Little said.
