With published polls pointing to a Labor win, Mr Frydenberg's blueprint for the nation will need to have enough sweeteners to satisfy voters in key battleground seats, while convincing the business community he is being fiscally responsible.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is widely expected to call an election for May 14, either delivering the Liberal-National coalition a longer term in office than John Howard's government, or putting Labor on the treasury benches.
Mr Morrison and Mr Frydenberg have already laid down the broad strokes of the budget.
These include billions of dollars of infrastructure investment, an emphasis on boosting skills, new manufacturing, an energy plan, creating jobs in the digital economy and lifting spending on national security and defence.
Any help for families will be "targeted and proportionate", the treasurer says.
The government routinely points to power bills falling by eight per cent in the past two years, $30 billion in income tax cuts in train and $10 billion a year in childcare support as evidence of easing the squeeze on the cost of living.
Mr Frydenberg is staring down the barrel of $1 trillion in debt and there is no guarantee the books can be balanced over the four-year forward estimates.
But he says growing the economy and being efficient with spending will get the budget closer to surplus and start to pay off debt.
A key factor will be sticking with the government's tax-to-GDP cap of 23.9 per cent.
"This imposes a discipline on the expenditure side of the budget and is consistent with the coalition's values of cutting taxes, not increasing them, enabling Australians to keep more of what they earn," Mr Frydenberg says.
The budget papers will show gross debt as a proportion of GDP will peak lower and earlier than forecast in the mid-year review published in December, declining over the medium term.
Massive support provided during the COVID-19 pandemic will be pared back to avoid putting further pressure on inflation and interest rates.
The budget will continue the government's conservative set of commodity price assumptions, notwithstanding iron ore prices sitting around $130 a tonne, thermal coal at a record $385 a tonne and metallurgical coal at a record $660 a tonne.
Mr Frydenberg is giving little away in terms of where salaries are heading, pointing to the mid-year review showing an upgrade of wages each year over the next four years and the national accounts showing average earnings up 3.4 per cent through the year.
Labor's budget reply will be closely watched as Anthony Albanese and his shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers may take the reins in May, if the polls are correct.
Labor's critique of the coalition has been clear for some time.
As Dr Chalmers says: "What matters most to working families in the economy is that their costs are going through the roof, their real wages are falling, and they're falling behind".
As well, business investment is below where it was when Labor left office in 2013.
Productivity is also getting worse with GDP per hour worked falling by 0.8 per cent in the December quarter.
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