The real danger to singapore is not welfare or welfarism as painted by the leaders.
We are not in danger of becoming a welfare state even if NKF incease patient subsidies or government reduce some fees and charges people are struggling to pay.
We are not suffering from welfare but the reverse - overcharging of fees leading to high costs brought about by unhealthy paranoid about welfare.
In the name of avoiding welfare, government is run on recovering all costs and charging every service up to full market values like private corporations.
As a consequence, all the taxes get accumulated to become surpluses and big reserves over which the government claims success and entitlements to good pays for themselves.
People are constantly indoctrinated on the danger of our becoming a welfare state when there is a bigger danger in government not providing basic services to the people which which they are entitled to.
If government in prepared to stop all such paranoid and desist from over-charging on utility and medicares or giving any further excuses to increase fees and charges, it is already doing citizens a big favour.
Citizens are not demanding welfare, even in the face of NKF short-changing the patients but are just asking government not to keep increasing fees and charges in the name of avoiding welfarism. So government should stop such paranoid and building up all the surpluses and reserves in order to reward themselves or claim success.
Welfare or welfarism - are two dirty words that even the poorest Singaporeans resist to allow themselves to be seen to be dependent.
During 2000 or 2001, the Straits Times reported two old ladies in their late sixties preferring to eke out a living selling 'wanton noodles' at a hawker center then being dependent on social welfare.
They were happy to pay the rental rates of the 1970s to the 1980s.
Unfortunately for these two old ladies, the HDB renovated the hawker center, and under a new HDB Policy - all hawkers and shop keepers were required to PURCHASE their stalls or shops, as HDB decided not to be in the leasing or rental business.
This sudden change in HDB Policy - requiring all business folks to purchase their premises based on market rates - forced the two old ladies to close their 'wanton noodle' business.
The story created a public outcry, and the HDB assisted the two old ladies to obtain bank loans to purchase their hawker stall.
Unfortunately, the business turnover of a small wanton noodel stall could not pay for the monthly instalment of a hawker stall that was based on normal commercial property rates charged by HDB - which had the benefit of acquiring the land at below market price, and building the hawker center with cheap Public Funds.
The two old ladies were hauled to court by the Finance Company for their failure to meet their repayment plan, and besides losing the business, they had to contend with legal fees.
Singapore can have a more vibrant economy if the BIG HAND of the Government DO NOT interfere, and if they must interfere, they should at least do so for the PUBLIC INTEREST - such as influencing land prices, stamp duties, development charges, all of which will finally filter through the layers of costings that will finally affect the Public Consumer.
If the Government intend to take the maximum out of the Singapore Public through an array of ingeniously planted DIRECT and INDIRECT TAX SCHEMES, it is obscene that they will then transfer the excess surplus Revenues from the Ministry of Finance into Temasek Holdings and the GIC, instead of returning the excess suplus revenue in terms of lower fees for all types of Government Services.
If NTUC is embarrassed with the HUGE ANNUAL PROFIT that they SUCK from the Singapore Population that patronise NTUC Fairprice, and they can respond by giving nearly two months of LOWER PRICES on most essential consumer goods; SURELY the Singapore Government can be more transparent in the manner in which they claim that subsidies have been made to charges to a whole list of Essential Services that Singaporean is dependent on.
The 2 old ladies could not make it in trying to eek out a living with their own labour against a relentlessly commercialised government that decided long ago that to be successful it has to tax the highest and recover the fullest costs in providing any government services from the people.
Consequently, taxes paid by people are hardly used and get accumulated into big surpluses to pay the ministers the highest salaries in the name of attracting talents.
Our people's entrepreneurship drives were stifled or killed off in the same way and by the same typical charging of fullest market values for stalls to these two old ladies.
Before the Bukit Ho Swee fire, the government did not have so much land to build public housing and it realised it has to acquire lands but would have to pay fair compensation, so it came out with the excuse of playing Robinhood to rob the rich of land and use lands to house the poor people displaced by natural disasters like fire.
After the Bukit Ho Swee fire, and after using the so-called Robinhood chivalry to acquire the power to acquire lands at dirt cheap prices it forgot that it had to use the acquired lands for public housing and decided to make huge profit from its large land stock so acquired with fiery Robinhood chivalry at almost little or no costs.
As a saying goes power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absoluteely, it suddenly in the up market condition of the 1970s to change its policy and began charging land at market commercial rates like the way it has charged the 2 old lady hawkers for public housing transferring windfall profits from acquistions to state land office and consolidated accounts when lands were already owned, and paid for by the citizens.
This has been the story of Singapore success - making monies from citizens instead creating economic vibrancy through broad-based education and nurturing of entrepreneurships among the people.
In the next budget, there should be a note to explain what reserve or surplus will be used for accountability and transparency e.g. under what kind of exigencies will reserve or surpluses be used if Mr. Ong Teng Cheong's type of exigency i.e. prolonged recessions are not acceptable to the government.
Statutory boards and GLCs should not keep sucking liquidity from the private sector economy as their actions will stifle the entrepreneurship and growth of the economy.
Surely, citizens should not keep paying high costs to sustain surpluses and reserves which purposes are not made known to them like the NKF.