New budget promises same old tired ideas
What do we pay them for anyway? If you're a boss who pays good salaries but your workers always come up with the same tired ideas, would you fire them? Of course. But we can't fire our top bureaucrats even though we pay their salaries. Our political system doesn't allow us to do that. They know that, so they act like our bosses instead.
Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah will again unveil his same tired ideas in this year's budget later this month. Unveil is the wrong word since he's 'unveiled' the same ideas year in, year out. Flush with cash after wrongly predicting a deficit, he'll again hand out sweeteners to placate a restless public. That's all he can think of doing with the public's money - throw some back at the people and hoard the rest for a 'rainy day' without defining what that means. He threw over HK$20 billion at the people last time and will likely do the same this time. The government has spent nearly HK$123 billion in one-off sweeteners in the past three years. Is it money well spent?
We pay our bureaucrats good money to think. But that's all they can come up with - the same one-off relief measures instead of using the money on big, new and durable ideas so future generations won't have to rely on one-off handouts. Their inability to think keeps the people in perpetual poverty. Maybe that's the way the bureaucrats like it.
Poverty the shame of our super-rich society
We're heading for yet another huge budget surplus - over HK$70 billion. That again confirms we are a super-rich society. So how come such a rich society has so many people in need of government handouts? How come we can generate so much wealth yet have over a million people living in poverty? Do our bureaucrats think about that when they rake up all those surpluses? Do they ever wonder if they're doing things the wrong way? Or do they tell themselves they can do no wrong?
Government won't confront greedy developers