2012 Budget: No Fundamentals

PM Najib spent over an hour announcing his 2012 Budget in Parliament last Friday. He touted it as a better budget than the one announced by Anwar on Tuesday.

The strangest thing was the lack of MSM fanfare touting fantastic statements in support of Najib’s budget. Certainly, if you were asked for comments and it was going to be published, you won’t be caught saying the wrong things however much you feel otherwise. That is politics. The positive spins were positively pathetic.

But what was unsaid was heard even louder.

Most struggle to put a positive spin about the Malaysia 2012 Budget.

That it was truly a welfare centric budget, one would ask why Christmas came early this year and Santa started dishing out goodies to everybody.

That it was a responsible budget, it certainly didn’t show with another deficit budget that requires even more government borrowings getting further into debt.

So what is good about Najib’s 2012 budget? Ho hum! Just lots of handouts. And will that really help much? Not really and most agree the economic impact will be negligible.

Enough About Hudud, On with the Economy!

The Hudud Issue has taken forefront over the other national issues particularly the electoral reforms as well as economic recovery actions.

It has become a political tool rather than a legal and religious matter. First, it was an attack on historical accuracy about our past if we were colonized or not. Then the independence fighter issue that revolved around the communists that Mat Sabu caused a stir.

It’s become an Umno vs Pas in multi-chapter episodes that the country has forgotten how serious the economic challenges are to Malaysia. The Greece potential financial repayment defaults will have a massive downside for us but we seem to be more concerned about raising hudud issues.

The Christian community has voiced out that there are no concerns as long as there is iron clad guarantee that non-Muslims are not affected.