FORMER prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad recently wrote: “The Malaysian Government total debt is almost one trillion ringgit … the people must pay GST, endure high cost of living, no scholarship for their children while Najib Razak enjoys the billions stolen from 1MDB, KWAP, KWSP, etc.”

Pakatan Harapan’s proposed budget aims to address these BN-created economic problems, with two simple goals: Spend Malaysian taxpayer money better, and decrease taxes to trigger faster economic growth. 

If Malaysia doesn’t retain its ability to improve its citizens’ quality of life, then it will continue to wobble and fall behind its Asian neighbours, which are becoming more and more stable and successful.

We can see it in Southeast Asian neighbours’ more optimistic confidence in their economies.

In a recent Pew Global survey, 91% of Vietnamese and 51 of Indonesians and Filipinos felt confident their countries’ children will be better off financially than their parents. 

But only 30% of Malaysians believed their children would be better off. 

Pakatan Harapan understands this.

The Pakatan Harapan budget correctly mentions Malaysia’s positive economic trends, but it also describes a more complete picture of the Malaysian economy more accurately than BN does.

The year 2016 provided many economic challenges, including a fiscal crunch and a crash of the ringgit. These had negative impacts on the economy and more importantly on the pockets of the Rakyat. 

In contrast, BN’s unrealistic budget includes the ridiculous promise even with all of Malaysia’s economic weaknesses, they would transform it into a high-income economy within two years(!). 

Najib is indeed Asia’s worst finance minister.

The parties that represent Pakatan Harapan have achieved a lot of outstanding economic progress already. 

Selangor has long been a successful state economic case study, Penang’s innovative government leadership has produced community wealth and high-tech entrepreneurs, and so on.

Fortunately, Pakatan Harapan’s budget was designed by four of Malaysian’s most talented public servants: Wong Chen is a successful UK-trained lawyer, Rais Hussein is a distinguished corporate leader, Ong Kian Ming is a legendary economist and academician, and Dzulkefly Ahmad is a gifted strategist and scientist. 

Despite all of their differences and party affiliations, almost all of these experts hold doctorate degrees, and received advanced education in prestigious universities— including Cambridge, the London School of Economics, Duke University, and Imperial College London. 

These four gentlemen have worked long and hard to design Pakatan Harapan’s budget for the entire nation, and Malaysia is lucky to have them as leaders.

Unlike BN’s budget, Pakatan also aims to save RM20 billion by reducing the government’s notorious waste and corruption. 

Furthermore, it will cut the budget for the Prime Minister’s Office from RM20 billion to RM8 billion. These billions will be freed up and re-invested into communities.

Most importantly, although the Pakatan Harapan budget proposes to eliminate BN’s hated GST, it convincingly shows how it will grow the Malaysian economy through a compensatory surplus of RM 6 billion. The solution: Smarter spending. (See PH budget, page 14.)

In contrast, although Najib promises he will provide RM1,500 and a few cheap goodies to the rakyat here and there, BN’s “debt-expanding” budget is bad. 

Unacceptably bad. Alamak, it’s so bad, BN has no solutions for preventing Malaysia’s decline among its Asian neighbours, nor escaping Malaysia’s infamous Middle Income Trap. 

Therefore, it’s time to change to a new track.

Mahathir is right the Malaysian economy is already too deep in debt and corruption. 

In fact, last month, when I reported the World Bank projected Malaysia’s growth rate will fall to 5% in 2018, then decrease further to 4.8 percent in 2019, Najib’s cronies and online trolls nervously tried to attack it as “alarmist” (The only alarm came from BN’s panicky overreaction to the World Bank report’s findings). 

But BN completely missed the point: As the World Bank Country Manager for Malaysia and many experts have repeatedly warned time and time again, big speeches about GDP percentages don’t really translate to good quality of life for the Malaysian people.

Fortunately, Malaysians can compare Pakatan Harapan’s and BN’s proposed budgets for themselves, and draw their own conclusions about which long-term economic strategy is best for all of the rakyat – not just the elite 1%. – November 9, 2017.

* Athena Angel reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.