Budget 2014 booklet?

We refer to the booklet “Budget 2014 – What it means for you and your family” which is being distributed to every household.

It has 4 areas which we would like to comment on.

Education

More kindergarten fee subsidies for lower-income families

Higher bursaries for ITE, Polytechnic and university students

Comment: $500m spending on non-citizens in a year?

With the continuance of the policy to have 16% of the first year undergraduate intake reserved for foreigners, plus an unknown number of permanent residents (PRs), and the bulk of graduate students being non-citizens – we estimate that the total spending in a year on non-citizens by way of scholarships from secondary to graduate courses, tuition grant for undergraduates, etc, to be about $500 million.

This sum may be sufficient to give free education to all Singaporean students in kindergarten, ITE, Polytechnics and the universities.

Health

Higher subsidies at Specialist Outpatient Clinics (SOCS) for lower and middle-income Singaporeans

More subsidies for medication from early 2015

MediShield Life – better benefits for life, subsidies for everyone in the first few years, permanent subsidies to help lower and middle-income pay for premiums

Higher CPF contribution rates to Medisave

Pioneer generation package – healthcare benefits

Comment: We are still not spending a single cent on healthcare from a cashflow perspective (Medisave contributions annually exceed total public healthcare spending and all withdrawals from Medisave).

Social support

Annual top-ups to Medisave for 5 years

Higher CPF contribution rates for older workers

Higher parent income tax reliefs

Higher subsidies for people with disabilities

Comment:  We have probably the lowest welfare spending in the world. For example, ComCare only spent $102.4 million in a year.

Help with cost of living

S&CC  rebate

GSTV – U-Save special payment

GSTV – cash: seniors’ bonus

Comment: With a $36.1 billion Budget surplus (recently amended to $25.3 billion?) using IMF fiscal reporting guidelines according to the Department of Statistics – shouldn’t we be spending more to help Singaporeans, especially those who are poor, disabled, lower-income, etc.

In this connection, the percentage of non “Singapore born – true blue” workers in the workforce may be close to or already over half the total workforce. There may be severe consequences to Singaporeans by way of unemployment, under-employment, depression of wages (only about 1% and near to 0% real growth per annum for the median and 20th percentile wages excluding employer CPF contribution, in the last decade or so), widespread age discrimination in jobs and real wages, etc.

S Y Lee and Leong Sze Hian