Budget 2010: Suspicious Quality Of Criticism Detected...

I have always thought Malaysians deserve a quality opposition. What happened during Pak Lah's regime further justified why, and it is without irony that I observe quality and effective opposition against it only emerged from the ranks of Barisan Nasional itself, not from the formal opposition parties in Malaysia. It is in fact ironic that whilst Pak Lah was eventually toppled, it was not by the formal opposition, who had pleaded for him to stay!

Some of the quality opposition against Pak Lah who rose among BN, such as Jeff Ooi, then joined the formal opposition. Whilst it was sad to see Jeff and others such as 'kickdefella' go, I had some hope that these would add much needed quality to the opposition ranks. My litmus test included how the opposition would respond to a BN National Budget, largely due to the pathetic responses of the past, including Lim Kit Siang's past insignificant ravings about 'TV licenses'.

Unfortunately, the quality of our opposition continues to be shallow into the new generation! At least Lim Guan Eng, now Chief Minister of Penang(!) no less, was talking about income taxes when commenting on the 2010 Budget right after its tabling. However, the commentary, fine perhaps in the ears of ignorant liberals, was still shallow, criticising the 15% rate for knowledge workers at Iskandar as being unfair and that it should apply to all knowledge workers nationwide!

This reminds me of Guan Eng's similarly shallow complaints before about how flying MAS from Singapore to another foreign city can be cheaper than flying MAS from KL to the same city. Again, fine criticism to the ignorant, but pretty pathetic as he fails to appreciate economic factors such as competitive forces. In the case of the Iskandar's discounted income taxes, is he failing to understand that it is specifically to build the area's competitiveness vis-a-vis Singapore? Does he even know that this is not new, with tax exemptions a favourite tool of Tun Dr M's?

Or maybe Guan Eng, having failed to improve the economic lot of the workers in Penang since he took over, is so desparate that he is hinting for DS Najib to cut income taxes for Penang's knowledge workers too? Maybe he is now facing the stark reality of his incompetence, despite loyal assistance from ex_BN man Jeff Ooi and other gerakan 'cross-overs', that he needs help from DS Najib's government? Ah... but he can't ask directly... malu beb!

Then again, one has to perhaps excuse Guan Eng. Considering the shallow economic basis passed on by his father, he must have been looking at the new opposition leader, DS Anwar Ibrahim for guidance... unfortunately, so called 'economic wizard' DS Anwar also FAILED! His press conference started well, with some interesting general commentary about the size of the deficit, until you realise:

1. DS Anwar was reading from text, and the material must have been very unfamiliar as he seemed to stutter in presenting some technical stuff. he is a very practiced parrot though, so many probably would forgive him this.


2. DS Anwar was more comfortable then speaking off the cuff, without aid of the text and all the technical economics material, speaking about 'transparency' and 'governance'. Same old story then, with no real criticism of the budget's salient points...


3. DS Anwar also made mistakes ala-Lim Kit Siang, but on credit card taxes rather than TV licenses. He complains that some 2 Million rakyat now have to pay taxes on credit cards, stating this as being 'significant', as opposed to 'small' benefits elsewhere. Hmmm, I get a RM500 tax rebate for my broadband in 2010, the smallest of the benefits, and only have to pay ~RM200 of credit card taxes... and only the high income folk pay... Hmmm...


4. Even as DS Anwar attempts to criticise by being 'global', he fails. E.g. he compares Malaysia's reduced ability to attract FDI to China and India's supposed recent strength. In the first place, what he is impliying is WRONG, all countries have suffered reduced cross-border investments over the course of the crisis, and China particularly weathered it the same way as Malaysia, by increased local activity. The there is size of economy, phasing, etc...

Don't believe me? Judge for yourself how shallow these two great opposition leaders are here, in their own words, with DS Anwar coming first followed by Guan Eng. What is scary now is that Guan Eng is running Penang state whilst DS Anwar is in power in Selangor, controlling Khalid Ibrahim by remote-control in the form of his former pegawai khas...

Meanwhile, I continue to lament that Malaysia does not have quality opposition, at least not of sufficient quality to make significant observations regarding this budget, and believe me, there are things worth questioning... things which I will question in private to those close to power that do appreciate quality opposition. In the meantime, here is a good precis of the budget offerings presented by StarTV. Worth more that any commentary from both sides of the floor...

These observations come a tad late as my back has been troubling me again of late. Ta!