Pakatan's Budget will cause RM200 Billion Loss?

The outrageous claim by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim that living standards are somehow falling was disproven on Tuesday, with figures showing that the average household income in Malaysia has increased by 7.2 per cent every year for the last four decades.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department SK Devamany confirmed that Malaysian households’ buying power has risen by fifteen times between 1970 to 2009.

“From 1970 to 2009, the average household income has increased … from RM264 a month in 1970 to RM4,025 a month in 2009.

“The average increase is higher than the average inflation rate of 3.4 per cent a year and this reflects the rising buying power of Malaysian households amidst a controlled price level,” Devamany told Parliament.

This shows up Anwar’s earlier claim as a blatant political stunt. The de facto Opposition leader had told Parliament on Monday that not enough was being done by the Barisan Nasional Government to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor in Malaysia, and that household wages remained low.

This, despite the Government implementing a minimum wage policy that will benefit millions of hard-working Malaysians – in spite of Pakatan, which had at the time attacked the national minimum wage as damaging to businesses.

Now, Pakatan has done a complete U-turn and is chanting the “growth” mantra in a desperate attempt to counter Budget 2013. The Opposition’s shadow Budget even proposes a RM1,100 minimum wage for both the public and private sectors, the very idea of which they were criticising barely a few months ago.

The Opposition has always complained against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s cash handouts to underprivileged families in previous budgets as wasteful.

Yet lo and behold, Pakatan now proposes to increase welfare payment from RM300 to RM550 a month.

In fact, Anwar promises to raise the disposable income of Malaysians. How exactly? He claimed that disposable incomes would rise through measures such as cheaper car prices, the abolishment of tolls, and the waiver of student loans.

None of these are new – Pakatan had already announced these populist proposals in the past. But they have been criticised by economists and politicians alike, as Pakatan’s proposals would leave the country poorer by RM200 billion. Yes, RM200 billion.