Hush!

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

From 5 to 7

GST will be raised from 5% to 7% and details on the effective date will most likely be announced next year on the "Budget Day".

"This is inevitable over the next 5 to 10 years. Infrastructure investments will cost money - R&D is to cost $5b over the next 5 years; as medical technology improves, people age and more will go to hospitals to get more treatment, so spending is bound to go up. As we tilt the playing field across the board, the lower income will be getting another boost, not just once in a while. Therefore its better to start building resources now so that when we spend more, we have the means to do so," said Mr Lee. To finance this, indirect taxes or the Goods & Services Tax will have to go up. "It will give us precious extra resources to implement social programmes like Workfare later on. Our aim is to help the lower income groups and the elderly, not to increase their burdens. When we implement the GST increase, it's not just the GST increase, it's the package which will fully offset the impact of the GST increase and begin to strengthen the social safety nets and tilt the balance in favour of the low income groups - we will not just raise the GST but we will have a comprehensive offset package," said Mr Lee. - [Channelnewsasia.com]

The "offset package" to fully offset the impact of GST increase? In the first place, how extensive can the "offset package" reach out to our lower income groups?

Pocket is going to gain a 2% increase in weight soon. Shouldnt all of our pay/allowance (excluding the ministerial pays hor..) go up as well in order to "fully offset" the impact of GST increase? Heh.

Perhaps a progress package every year would be a sweet deal instead of a one-time thing. Unfortunately, we cant have an election every year. Whats the point of letting us taste something sweet and few months later to find ourselves end up paying double/triple or more for what we got from the package? And It shouldnt be even called a "progress package". It should be called the "Citizen to Payback soon package" instead. Heh. Stupid. Then I damn "loo gi", I wasnt entitled for the Package this year cos I am not yet 21 (on 31 Dec 2005.)

Labels: Gahmen, Singapore

Friday, April 28, 2006

Election Fire set ablaze

The moment the candidates from both parties were announced, every single lamp post in my estate was plastered with the photos of the MP of my area (my mum said the posters would have been a good 'Darlie' Toothpaste ad.) and you can only spot a few pathetic Opposition posters average about every 10 lamp posts away. It has been a long long time since the residents last cast their votes. According to my parents, they have only voted twice during the whole of 18 years living in this estate. One was the Presidential Election and the other was the General election that took place donkey years ago.

Since yesterday, the MP and his town council have been working really hard. Not only doing walkabout, but also cleaning, scrubbing, painting every inch, every corner of the estate. For the first time in my life, I saw a cleaner coming late at night (10pm!) cleaning the corridor outside my unit with his supervisor tailing him at the back. But this 'strange phenomenon' only comes like about 5, 6 years, i supposed.

It might be nothing new to you if you stayed in a hotly-contested constituency. Finally after 10 years, there is some competition going on in our low profiled estate. Woah. So i expect the candidates will come knocking at my door soon and the truck with the loud hailers 'Pls vote for XXX.....' will come by any moment....

Labels: Gahmen, Singapore. Elections