2/17/2007

budget - narrowing income gap

"Income gaps are widening," Second Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said in his budget speech. A "Progress Package" of government handouts last year was weighted in favour of lower-income groups and helped reduce that disparity. The above is probably the gist of what the 2% increase in GST is all about. And with the lower income group getting the chunk of the $4 billion package, indeed the income gap has been narrowed. The lower income group could get a hefty $1000 annually for 4 years against the richer group that may get $200. So income gap has closed by $800! But this would not last long when the next pay rise is announced when the richer group could see tens of thousands of dollars added to their pay package against the $30 or $150 added to the lower income group. That is the reality in life. How to narrow the income gap? Impossible. Cannot be done.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello redbean!

My name is Pearly, and I represent a group of final-year students from Nanyang Technological University, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information. For our final year project, we are conducting an academic study of online practices and political perceptions of Singaporeans and would like to invite you to take part in this project.

Your participation in this study is voluntary and you may withdraw from the questionnaire at any point. However, your participation is very important and we hope you will complete the questionnaire. We also hope you can help us publicise this and get your friends to participate as well.

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The online questionnaire will take no more than 20 minutes to complete. Please click on the link below to start the online questionnaire:
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home2003/tayp0001

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Regards,
Pearly

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

hi pearly,

would be glad to be of help. i will look into the questionaires but will leave out things that are too personal.

i wish am a student again. undergraduate life is great today with so many exciting developments and things to do. wow!

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

How to narrow the income gap?

This is the wrong question.

The question should be WHY narrow the income gap?

And the answers is simple: to buy votes.

This is a sham. If S'poreans had less govt interfering with their lives, everyone would be better off.

For starters, drop the GST back to 3%, and cut company taxes to 10% - flat. (Hong Kong is 16.5% — and it is progressive, i.e. not every corporation pays 16.5%, many pay less) Income tax — remove all together — i.e. 0%

When taxes are cut, govt gets smaller. For e.g. there won't be so much money to pay ministers such lavish salaries.

Fancy a minister telling the people "the income gap is widening". Fucking hell, the guy earns many many times more than the avverage worker. Cheeky bugger — he has the temerity to tell us "the income gap is widening".

But the best part... the people are silent!

MATILAH SINGAPURA!

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

i like playing robin hood. one dollar for you, ONE DOLLAR for me.

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