Budget: Ask in a very loud voice:

“After GE, will the PAP administration raise GST rates and by how much?”

After all, an ally and cheer leader of the PAP administration wrote about the Budget:

Mr Tharman flagged this gap … about the 1 percentage point projected gap between long-term revenues and long-term spending. The latter is tipped to go up to 19 to 19.5 per cent of GDP from now, as Singapore opens its coffers to spend on health care, retirees, and on infrastructure and investment in education. The former hovers around 18 to 18.5 per cent of GDP.

How to make up the shortfall of about 1 per cent of GDP?

This is a structural issue that will have resonance beyond this Budget.*

As it’s unlikely that the Wayang Party will raise the issue about the rise in GST rates after the GE in Parly* because it may still be hoping to curry favour with the MIW by not asking difficult questions, responsible bloggers and cyber-warriors should ask the question.

So should all voters (pro PAP or anti-PAP alike, GST affects everyone) who meet their PAP MPs and their PA grassroot hangers-on when they come to lobby for votes. Especially when the MPs and hangers-on boast of all the goodies voters are getting, parroting a gushing a PAP apologist, if ever there was one,who wrote in ST:.

I tried frantically to keep up with noting down the giveaways as Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam reeled them off as he announced the Budget 2015. …

All in, it can be said to be a sensible yet generous Budget, albeit at the expense of the very high-income. It may disappoint those who wanted a big SG50 Bonus to celebrate the nation’s Jubilee. But it does give out a mass hongbao to all Singaporeans, via top-ups to education funds for children and students, and via the new $500 SkillsFuture Credit for workers. – See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/opinion/columns/story/singapore-budget-2015-7-reasons-why-years-robin-hood-budget-matters-20150#sthash.CK7uOl8a.0xjbXaNf.dpuf

The answer we want to hear is what Tharman said in 2011

Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam has reiterated that the goods and services tax (GST) will not be raised for at least another five years …“As Finance Minister, I have made that very clear in Parliament that at least for the next five years – it does not mean we will raise it in five years’ time – but at least for five years, there is absolutely no reason to raise the GST, because this was the whole idea – we strengthen our revenue base in time. (CNA)

And finally let’s remember that all this money the PAP administration is throwing at us is our money, not that of the PAP’s administration.

—

*Yes, Yes I know: Mr Tharman has a way to close that 1 per cent gap: Use projected long-term returns from Temasek Holdings.

The Net Investment Return formula framework was implemented in 2009. He said: “Under the framework, the Government is allowed to spend up to 50 per cent of the expected long term real returns on its net assets managed by MAS and GIC.”

Temasek was left out as it was undergoing a major change in investment strategy. Mr Tharman said it was a good time to add Temsek to the mix.

So this Budget is important for signalling the long-term gap in revenue and spending.

It is also significant for using a new framework that allows Singapore to tap a wider pool of money from expected investment returns on its reserves into the future. 

“The move will bolster our fiscal resources at a time when we have to fund long-term critical infrastructure and develop the human talent and capabilities to secure our future.”– See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/opinion/columns/story/singapore-budget-2015-7-reasons-why-years-robin-hood-budget-matters-20150#sthash.CK7uOl8a.0xjbXaNf.dpuf

Doubtless, the cybernuts will say that their heloo, Roy the Hooligan is responsible for this change in govt policy, though I’m sure s/o JBJ would dispute this, saying Tharman stole his idea.

But do remember that the other cybernuts’ hero Ong Teng Cheong wanted all the returns from the resreves locked away for good. It’s in the DNA of the PAP to make life tough for us. So unless we get the PAP to rule out a GST increase after the election, we could get screwed.

This  is what a FT based here says: Ten years ago, the Singapore’s preferred choice would have been to raise its goods and services tax. Levies on consumption are easier to collect and less flighty than the incomes of high-earning expatriates. But that option is now politically infeasible. The People’s Action Party, which has ruled Singapore throughout its 50-year history as an independent nation and must call an election by January 2017, is wary of upsetting voters.

http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2015/02/24/piketty-meets-pragmatism-in-singapore-tax-hike/

But this cock (Trash?) forgets that the administration can raise GST after the GE, if no-one holds its feet to the fire on the issue in the run up to the GE.

**Mrs Chiam may have other issues that she thinks are more important and this batch of NMPs are not the kind to rock the boat. And I don’t blame them, if the co-driver (each MP getting $15,000 a month) sets a bad example, what can one expect?