Does budget have conscience?

The budget has always an either or concern and the more the paradoxical situation is handled the more relevant the document will become. All of Pakistan's budgets are lacklustre for the public. The major gainers are the powerful in the government or their cronies. The increase in discretion fund can mean only one thing in an election year. It is the siphoning off of resources for the purposes of electioneering. The fact that the budget is inelastic meaning that it has very limited scope of increasing its financial resources. The tax burden cannot be on the few any more and one just cannot kill the golden goose.
The issue with the national effort and the non-payment of taxes or not coming within the tax net is simply this that the money so collected is used for personal favours and not for the benefit of the general public. The morality of the government is always in doubt if the personal discretionary grant is on the increase while all the other elements have lost out. There are other problems and issues that have to be resolved. The either or choices can be whether Islamabad deserves the kind of development and one minister saying that this town is the face of Pakistan. Well gentlemen it is pock marked and it has suffered from chicken pox not to mention small pox.
The indications are writ large on the face of it. So like Meiraj Khalid do not make tall claims. Remember the pious dead said that Lahore will be made the Paris of Pakistan. What rot. Lahore may have become the stink pot of Punjab while Karachi has the same distinction for Sindh. About three hundred years ago Baron Thurlow said that the governments neither have a conscience nor a soul. Well if governments neither have soul then it cannot be damned and if it does not have a conscience it cannot be kicked around. Islamabad is known to have been reckoned to a cemetery that is half as large as Arlington and twice as dead. Unless the budget has a conscience and a soul thing will not move forward; for it is an illusion that things move forward because they are compartmentalised. Box every one in and see the effect on the personality of the individual. The Budget is along the same contention, although the majority of the people do not recognise it as such.
The budget does not ease the pain of Pakistanis. In fact it makes it worse. There is no longer a sheath of pain for it is one continuous stream. When responsibility levels are what they are then the danger to the federation. The soul is difficult aspect to understand for it defies identification and yet it is easily discernable when the soul is in movement. Go to any ministry and see for yourself. These are all cemeteries. The soul is dead, the conscience is just not there to be kicked any more and that is because successive governments have played second fiddle to the powerful. The game-plan is always there for everyone to see and the corridors of power as usual are always open to the powerful who then breeze in and breeze out indicating what they want done.
So what is required if Pakistan is to optimise the use of scarce resources.
The ego is the main hurdle to the working of the budget. The budget makers do not know how to create more money or how to save it from the existing resources. They have a dull imagination and go on number crunching. Can they get Balochistan right? No they cannot for most of them have not been there. Balochistan is a funny thorn in Pakistan's side for the elites there are not only corrupt but have serious weaknesses in morality. Discretionary grant there is for the purpose of bribery. Of all the people that have used this resource best one can only mention Chaudhry Nisar who used this discretion to build a reputation for himself as a righteous person? Do they mention something for the FATA and PATA areas or the North and South Waziristan? Odd balls can be seen all over stuttering about without anything in their brain. No where have I seen such disconnects between the governed and the governors. What will happen when and if these arrogant persons are not returned to the assemblies? Will these guys not break down?
If the internal and the customs were to do their jobs then Pakistan would not be a resource-starved country. With real estate the driving force at the moment what have these tycoons that have sapped the blood of the nation been able to the country what they owe to the nation simply because the net income is much more. Pakistan will have to come to terms between the love of material persons that wield a lot of power and the money stinkers. The Keynesian concept of multiplier is important for it means that the self reliant intervention is not based on financial resources. At the NARC the system had been made to work. I had toyed with the system for a long time and I knew that the elite would not leave anything for agriculture. So make do with whatever one can do. Unfortunately this also requires that the stupid in the political system have to be cast aside. It is not the financial resources that are at stake here. The low level of intelligence in policymakers is responsible for the lack of spine in the responsible persons. All things come to an end. But one of Macaulay's quotes is worthwhile that any one that has a right to hanging has a right to education, not the sort of education that you and I see everyday. The person was responsible for the Punjab University. For the FC and Gordon College were his creations.
Education and health can be handled the way it can and not the way that these guys are doing it playing it into the hands of the pharmaceuticals and the MNCs of the west. Want to bet what can be done without the use of expensive surgery.
Is it not a fact that the ministry of health and those that have been in it have amassed a lot of resources from it? So why blame Musas of this world. Can there be an honest debate and honest actions on the budget? Grow up. No institution is sacred. No individual is sacred. No one is above the principles of this country so why allow pimps and rental accruals to people that do not deserve to have our nationality. No need to expand your chest when making false assertions. Bring in the law of torts so that what your tongue says if incorrect is taken to the courts.
That is what the courts are for to redress the balance for the individuals and for the institutions and make this country livable. No Baktar Bund drive will help. No power can curtail the humbleness of the people power. It is all a question of time when the poor will one day reign supreme. The budget is a social tool if you choose it to be so. It can correct centuries of injustices. But do you and I want it to be such? The size of the budget is immaterial. In the traditional way of formulating the budget we will always be short. Imagination and ideas are more important.