Is this Effective/Efficient Budget Management?!
Speaking from a lay person's point of view, I seriously wonder if the way our gahment is managing the country's finances is really effective or efficient.
We have this whole smorgasbord of financial aids and schemes that are supposed to help the disadvantaged. Some are permanent schemes, some are temporary.
The first problem is in the definition of 'disadvantaged'. You have to be really down and out and eating only one meal a day kind of poor to qualify. But if you do qualify, you will realise that whatever monetary aid you get is not enough to make your life significantly better. Well, it is enough just to keep you alive. Then there are some arbitrary way of classifying people into the needy, not-so needy, and no needy categories. Usually, it goes by the size of the flat you stay in. This means there will be this whole lot of people who are unfortunately enough to stay in bigger housing through no fault of their own but cannot qualify. Financial status is affected by many things. I may stay in an Executive Mansionette, but have 2 parents, 2 kids to support and living from hand to mouth because my income is barely enough.
Then there is this problem of having too many variety of schemes to the extent that nobody really knows what is available out there.
Then because of typical kiasu gahment mindset, they make getting your hand on the help so difficult. Either you have to eat dust before you can qualify, or you have to produce proof that is so difficult to produce, or you have to go through terrible red tapes to get it, or you don't know it is there.
In the end, you have this whole myriad of assistance schemes that have very miserable take up rate. The gahment then convenient conclude that people aren't that worse off then, since nobody is taking up.
But all these schemes are budgeted for each year. So in order to ensure there are enough funds for these schemes, we need to know we can afford the money. As more and more people ask for more and more help - because what is available is ineffective/inefficient, the smorgasbord of schemes are ever increasing. To budget for the ever increasing schemes, we need money, and hence, some 'smart aleck' who have never had to worry about getting the latest gear while in school came up with an even smarter idea - let's increase tax.
Since we can't tax the higher income group - the 'elite' will be the first to feel the pinch - and since the gahment has always had this long term goal of reducing corporate tax - the only way the gahment can get money is through GST, right? And about corporate tax cut, we can't have a situation where the corporate tax rate that is significantly lower than the highest personal tax rate, so it is impossible to increase the tax on the rich to help the poor. In fact, the rich will benefit from corporate tax cut because sooner or later, their tax rate will also go down to be in line with the corporate tax rate.
So back to GST. To justify increase in GST, the gahment must introduce EVEN MORE schemes to help the poor. Now the smorgasbord is really getting insanely complicated.
And really, are the people really helped? Who knows?
So you have this really poor people who supposedly have help, and assuming they are really helped, good for them. At least they are helped. Then you have this loaded group who isn't going to mind an increase in GST because their personal tax rate is going down anyway. Who knows? They may even abolish estate tax soon.
What does that leave us? Folks like us who are caught right in the middle. We get the worst deal because during bad times, we have to endure cuts in pay that never get restored, and during good times, we have to put up with increasing costs - not just in the form of tax but cost of goods like transportation.
What kind of message is the gahment sending? Leave the bourgeois to be as bourgeois as they can and keep the super, grovelling poor class? What is in the middle is not acceptable and undeserving? The people are complaining that they have no bread to eat? Why don't they eat cake?
Not forgetting that all this while, we have more budget surplus than we know how to spend them.
So, to a lay person like me, it sure does not make sense. It is like parents hoarding all this money while at the same time making the children beg for every penny they need. Not that the parents aren't able to afford the stuff, but 'we really need to instill the right values in our children'. Make them earn every single cent they need. Teach them there is no free lunch in this world, not even the lunch that they have to eat now just to grow up and survive. Sure, we are hoarding every cent we can but we must save for rainy days. Save for college funds. Then when the kids are going to college, instead of using the funds saved over the years, make the children work their way through college to instill the right work ethics. What about the money? Rainy days may still come. What if they are sick? Ok, now that someone in the family is sick, can we use the funds now? No cannot. Just go for the cheapest possible healthcare available. Never mind the fact that you have to wait 1 month before you can see the doctor (by which time you could be dead). Never mind the fact that just to get one test done and then see the doctor for a result, you have to wait for weeks and months. We cannot just 'anyhow' spend the reserves. We need to be prepared for the unforeseen circumstances.
So the poor kids, from babyhood to adulthood to old age, they live like pauper in order to get some alms from the parents-who-never-die, while the parents hoard every single cent.
Oh, and remember that we have to pay the fund managers well. You know, those people who decide who much the family can spend, how much the children deserve to get, those people who holds the key to the family vault. We need to pay them well. Make sure they can afford nice cars, nice house, nice vacation, nice clothes, nice food. Why? Otherwise, they may go and work for someone else and then who is going to manage all that hoarded funds? But wait! Aren't they the employees of the family? You are saying that the employees should be better treated than the family members, the children?
Is this really a sound way of managing funds? I seriously have my doubts.
We have this whole smorgasbord of financial aids and schemes that are supposed to help the disadvantaged. Some are permanent schemes, some are temporary.
The first problem is in the definition of 'disadvantaged'. You have to be really down and out and eating only one meal a day kind of poor to qualify. But if you do qualify, you will realise that whatever monetary aid you get is not enough to make your life significantly better. Well, it is enough just to keep you alive. Then there are some arbitrary way of classifying people into the needy, not-so needy, and no needy categories. Usually, it goes by the size of the flat you stay in. This means there will be this whole lot of people who are unfortunately enough to stay in bigger housing through no fault of their own but cannot qualify. Financial status is affected by many things. I may stay in an Executive Mansionette, but have 2 parents, 2 kids to support and living from hand to mouth because my income is barely enough.
Then there is this problem of having too many variety of schemes to the extent that nobody really knows what is available out there.
Then because of typical kiasu gahment mindset, they make getting your hand on the help so difficult. Either you have to eat dust before you can qualify, or you have to produce proof that is so difficult to produce, or you have to go through terrible red tapes to get it, or you don't know it is there.
In the end, you have this whole myriad of assistance schemes that have very miserable take up rate. The gahment then convenient conclude that people aren't that worse off then, since nobody is taking up.
But all these schemes are budgeted for each year. So in order to ensure there are enough funds for these schemes, we need to know we can afford the money. As more and more people ask for more and more help - because what is available is ineffective/inefficient, the smorgasbord of schemes are ever increasing. To budget for the ever increasing schemes, we need money, and hence, some 'smart aleck' who have never had to worry about getting the latest gear while in school came up with an even smarter idea - let's increase tax.
Since we can't tax the higher income group - the 'elite' will be the first to feel the pinch - and since the gahment has always had this long term goal of reducing corporate tax - the only way the gahment can get money is through GST, right? And about corporate tax cut, we can't have a situation where the corporate tax rate that is significantly lower than the highest personal tax rate, so it is impossible to increase the tax on the rich to help the poor. In fact, the rich will benefit from corporate tax cut because sooner or later, their tax rate will also go down to be in line with the corporate tax rate.
So back to GST. To justify increase in GST, the gahment must introduce EVEN MORE schemes to help the poor. Now the smorgasbord is really getting insanely complicated.
And really, are the people really helped? Who knows?
So you have this really poor people who supposedly have help, and assuming they are really helped, good for them. At least they are helped. Then you have this loaded group who isn't going to mind an increase in GST because their personal tax rate is going down anyway. Who knows? They may even abolish estate tax soon.
What does that leave us? Folks like us who are caught right in the middle. We get the worst deal because during bad times, we have to endure cuts in pay that never get restored, and during good times, we have to put up with increasing costs - not just in the form of tax but cost of goods like transportation.
What kind of message is the gahment sending? Leave the bourgeois to be as bourgeois as they can and keep the super, grovelling poor class? What is in the middle is not acceptable and undeserving? The people are complaining that they have no bread to eat? Why don't they eat cake?
Not forgetting that all this while, we have more budget surplus than we know how to spend them.
So, to a lay person like me, it sure does not make sense. It is like parents hoarding all this money while at the same time making the children beg for every penny they need. Not that the parents aren't able to afford the stuff, but 'we really need to instill the right values in our children'. Make them earn every single cent they need. Teach them there is no free lunch in this world, not even the lunch that they have to eat now just to grow up and survive. Sure, we are hoarding every cent we can but we must save for rainy days. Save for college funds. Then when the kids are going to college, instead of using the funds saved over the years, make the children work their way through college to instill the right work ethics. What about the money? Rainy days may still come. What if they are sick? Ok, now that someone in the family is sick, can we use the funds now? No cannot. Just go for the cheapest possible healthcare available. Never mind the fact that you have to wait 1 month before you can see the doctor (by which time you could be dead). Never mind the fact that just to get one test done and then see the doctor for a result, you have to wait for weeks and months. We cannot just 'anyhow' spend the reserves. We need to be prepared for the unforeseen circumstances.
So the poor kids, from babyhood to adulthood to old age, they live like pauper in order to get some alms from the parents-who-never-die, while the parents hoard every single cent.
Oh, and remember that we have to pay the fund managers well. You know, those people who decide who much the family can spend, how much the children deserve to get, those people who holds the key to the family vault. We need to pay them well. Make sure they can afford nice cars, nice house, nice vacation, nice clothes, nice food. Why? Otherwise, they may go and work for someone else and then who is going to manage all that hoarded funds? But wait! Aren't they the employees of the family? You are saying that the employees should be better treated than the family members, the children?
Is this really a sound way of managing funds? I seriously have my doubts.