We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: Username:   Password: Log In

Budget 2008
Topic Started: Jan 17 2008, 02:52 PM (28 Views)
NicoRobin	Jan 17 2008, 02:52 PM Post #1
~angel~ Posts: 2,435 Group: Pirate Member #300 Joined: December 6, 2007	This is a composition I have been doing for some Essay writing competition. Information can be found at http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/essay.html I'm in Category 2. The deadline is next Friday 25th Jan 2008. Feel free to point out any errors/fallacies/other random stuff in my composition. Maybe I can win SGD$2,500 I'm already exceeding the word count by about 100, and theres still some parts I haven't added in (e.g. the underlined portions) as well as some areas that I'll still be editing. Budget 2007 Category 2 Essay Writing Competition Topic: Infinite possibilities; finite resources Life in our modern world can be described as an eternal, frenzied race – the race to be ahead of everyone else in the competition, to achieve more successes, and ultimately, to earn more money. This is all done so that we can live in bigger, more comfortable houses, send our children to top schools and universities and go on holidays to exotic places. Ultimately, this is all done so that we can lead blissful, ecstatic lives. To put it simply; our society is such a fast-paced one that we are always being reminded of one simple fact – nothing lasts forever, which is why we are always aiming to develop what we have in the present. Singapore is confronted with two predominant challenges: the issue of insufficient land space as well as __________. This paper advocates the importance of maximizing the limited land resource she possesses, and weighs the magnitude of the consequences of introducing the new concept of “Means testing” in the healthcare sector. One important requirement of a competent government is to aim to keep the society as established as possible, so as to move on and attain greater goals, such as economic status in the global society, without having to constantly worry about its policies being eroded from within. As a country without any form of natural resources, and restricted revenue sources excluding fiscal policies, the Singapore government has to draw upon other suppliers for income to attend and deal with the critical issues threatening the country. In this respect, the preservation of human life and happiness becomes a major goal. Issue 1: Needless to say, our Earth is faced with the grave problem of overpopulation. At 6.6 billion and still increasing at a rate of 1.14% annually (in 2000), there is an increasing demand for land, and the lack of space has led to scientists searching for various alternatives, such as possible areas of development in outer space, for example. Singapore is no exception from this trend. With a population of 4.6 million on a land size of only 16, 392 sq meters, her population density ranks 4th in the world, and hence intelligent usage of the available land space is vital in ensuring the comfort and welfare of her citizens, which should be the most important objective of the government. The key objectives of the government are to alleviate the problem of a lack of land space through 2 means: Firstly, focusing on enhanced, innovative ways to utilize the limited land space Singapore controls, and secondly, to control the vehicle population so as to reduce traffic jams. A common concern amongst Singaporeans is that with increasing urbanization, the frequency and intensity of traffic jams has surged at alarming rates, jeopardizing work productivity due to extra time spent on the roads, stuck in traffic jams. Furthermore, current methods – setting up gantries to impose Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) which is a form of tax that discourages drivers from using certain roads, has been proven to be ineffective as it only serves to displace the problem onto another route. Novel, fresh ideas are needed. One such way is to introduce higher carbon taxes to car drivers. Originally used for environmental purposes – to slash greenhouse gas emissions and in so doing slow down global warming, carbon taxes can be adapted to reduce the traffic congestion problem. This can be done to dissuade the use of cars, and instead shift the focus onto usage of public transport such as Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) or Buses. Pricing cars out of the range of more income groups will further assist in relocating car users to public transport instead. Thus, if the country’s population were to start using public transport more frequently, it is inevitable that the current public transport standards are developed to accommodate more commuters than before. As the backbone of railway systems in Singapore, it is crucial to build upon the current MRT system to make it more effectual. For example, increasing the frequency and carriage sizes of the current MRT trains would be an attractive offer to welcome new commuters, who could previously have been put off by the waiting time or the availability of space in the present designs of the trains. The current daily frequencies of approximately 5-7 minutes per train must improve through increasing the number of operating trains, for example. If the current daily ridership of about 1.435 million (in 2006) were to be enhanced, not only would vehicle count on the roads be cut back, greenhouse emissions would also plunge sharply. Furthermore, the bus network’s daily ridership is almost double that of the MRT at 2.853 million, and still has the capacity to take even more passengers. The current fleet of about 2,700 buses serving the entire island provides full access to every corner of our island, linking even Sentosa to the main island. SBS transit and SMRT Corporation, as the main competitors in the duopoly transport systems that also operates rail, taxi and bus, could make arrangements to further improve upon current service standards of the bus transport system. Similarly, increasing the frequencies of bus arrival times would play a key role in attracting more people to replace private transport with public transport. On the part of the government, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) should plan out more expressways to form key transport mediums between the towns and regional areas. Reducing of traffic congestion through the widening of roads would ensure smoother flow of traffic, providing people with a more convenient link to their workplaces, usually located in the city areas. The introduction of government policies to increase birth rates poses an important consideration for the provision of new housing properties. The confluence of Singapore lacking land as well as methods to increase her land size other than land reclamation has a significant impact on the construction industry, especially after Indonesia banned sand exports to Singapore in 2007. Without any resources to call her own, Singapore must buy resources from other countries. Take the example of Newater. As the expiry date of the deal to purchase water from Malaysia draws closer with each coming day, researchers came up with 2 alternatives in the form of Newater and desalination plants. Together with rainfall, the “four tap” idea seeks to reduce the country’s reliance on foreign imports and to diversify her water sources and achieve self-reliance. Similarly, the pursuit for sources of new building materials is the top priority that needs to be addressed. Singapore used to spend about 120 to 160 million a year importing sand from Indonesia , and will definitely have to search for alternative suppliers and diversify its supply source for construction works. Therefore, the scarcity of sand makes it all imperative to maximize utilization of land space. Yet, the need for new houses still has to be addressed. Without proper urban planning and management, there can be little doubt that Singapore would be a much worse place without the level of organization imposed by planning measures. Over 80-90% of Singapore’s population are currently living in HDB flats, which solve the problem of overcrowding by having high density housing – “stacking” residents on top of one another. While current HDB flats may reach only up to twelve stories in height, a possible move would be to build houses higher to save space. Cities in Singapore still have the potential to spread upwards. Clusters of skyscrapers, marking the centre of the Central Business District area can also be applied to housing. At the moment, the Housing Development Board (HDB) is setting up Condo-style HDB flats in several locations around the island, with some reaching up to 50 stories in height. However, several factors may hinder people from moving into these upcoming flats. For one, these flats are costly, based on a price per square feet per plot ratio of $180 to $250. Even simple four-room flats are selling for $450,000 to $490,000 . Secondly, these flats are only available to buyers earning $8,000 and below. While attractive offers of free furniture and accessible sites may entice buyers, a great portion may be unable to afford such expensive houses, or may feel that buying a condominium would be a better deal altogether, and would hence shun away from purchasing those flats. Thus, buyers would ask themselves: Can I really afford this? Are these condo-style HDB flats are really that worthwhile? Could there be a cheaper alternative? Before introducing more such flats, it would be wise to consider if people would welcome more expensive properties and reduce the price tag to make it more affordable to the masses. Issue 2: Means testing – a process undertaken to determine whether individuals are qualified for certain medical benefits. Already available in many countries such as Australia and the United States, the Singapore government is also planning to look into developing means testing as a form of subsidiary benefit. In this program, means testing will be done according to income. But its benefits and impacts are debatable, and there are many loopholes in this concept. Through means testing, the government aims to reduce expenditure by providing less subsidies to the higher-income group. But is this really fair? Egalitarianism holds that all people should be treated equally from birth. Through this arrangement, the lower-income group do not worry about saving money for medical purposes because the government is able to address this insufficiency. Introducing means testing to the medical sector may result in a slippery slope argument – that means testing should be applied to even more aspects, such as education. In the long term, the citizens may become over-reliant on the government to provide for them. Take for example the case in Australia, where the government provides subsidies to indigenous people who think that they have been mistreated. The result was that young people chose to live off the government instead of pulling their own weight, as they will stop getting paid once they start work. The middle-income group may suffer greatly from this policy. While the subsidy may not mean a lot towards people with minor illnesses, for people with chronic illnesses, people who often have to receive treatment will benefit greater from this subsidy. A middle-income family who falls under this category will find it unfair, as they require further economic support than the low-income group. It is also unfair to be accessed on the type of property that the unemployed and elderly live in. The government must consider the possibility of elderly whose children do not provide for them, and could only be living on their savings. In such situations, it is unreasonable to access the degree of subsidy based on a person’s dwelling, only to a small extent. It may result in having to consider providing subsidies on a case-by-case basis, which wastes time and human resource. A more tenable suggestion would be to reduce subsidies given to people of all income groups. To keep Singapore economically competitive in the globalized world, her citizens would have to support themselves instead of relying on the government. While this may lead to protests from the lower-income group that the government is not doing enough to help them, should the complete care and preservation of human life and happiness be the most important object of a good government? Although such goals may be admirable in principle, there are times when they may backfire – for example, in welfare states such as Britain or Germany, the government does indeed try to provide a safety net for its people, and, through cheap education and healthcare, keep them happy. But this overemphasis on meeting the social needs of their citizens has led to a morass of other problems – slow economic growth, a fast-increasing national debt especially in the case of Britain’s National Health Service. Revenue Sources of the future: Tourism in Singapore is a major industry, with millions of tourists from over the globe converging in Singapore every year, reaching a record 9.7 million tourists in 2006. Tourists also spent and estimated $12.4 billion in 2006, resulting in a 14% increase from 2005. A Tourism 2015 blueprint even aims to put visitor arrivals at 17 million, and raise tourism receipts to S$30 billion . Thus, it is highly possible that most of the decisions made will revolve around expanding our tourism industry. Not only will this establish Singapore as a tourism hub, but also serve as a major revenue source to finance the government’s spending needs. Hence, this paper advocates that the government banks on tourism revenue sources for income. Singapore’s Changi Airport is already a major aviation hub in Asia. Passenger traffic is also exceptionally high, with the airport handling 35 million passengers in 2006, an 8% increase from 2005. This makes it the 22nd busiest airport in the world With the opening of Changi Airport’s new Terminal 3, the airport’s annual passenger capacity will be increased by 22 million. While new terminals are being built, old ones are continuously upgraded and expanded, and Singapore’s tourism industry will no doubt be given a significant boost. With the imminent completion of the Integrated Resort (IR) in Singapore’s Sentosa Island, Singapore’s tourism industry is expected to be given a substantial boost, and is crucial in keeping up with intense competition faced from our neighbours, particularly that of Malaysia’s Genting Highlands, which is all the rage with local tourists. Over 35,000 jobs are promised, both directly and indirectly, which is essential in further improving upon the current jobless rate in Singapore. Given the opening of the IR, which is expected to recoup their expenditure in building costs within approximately 5 to 10 years, the government’s revenue would be greatly increased through tourism in these new locations to fund future spending needs. Raising vice taxes and reducing subsidies provided will go a long way in increasing government revenue. Increasing taxes on vice products such as smoking and drinking would not only serve as a feasible method of increasing government revenue but also discourage people from buying these products and kicking the habit. This would also address the concerns of Singaporeans who may have trouble in curbing their addiction. However, this solution may not be feasible as a long-term revenue source, as people may choose to leave Singapore to purchase these products. The government may then receive even less revenue because potential taxation of such vice products would then be lost. Conclusion: Singapore’s long-term priorities are to remain economically competitive in the global environment, as well as to survive the ages to come. As Thomas Jefferson once said: To entitle everyone to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Every citizen has the right to seek one’s happiness, and the duty to contribute to the society. Good governments realize when the happiness of their people needs to become a secondary goal in order to secure the progress of society, as in the case of reducing subsidies given to the poor. Of course, governments should also take the welfare of their citizens into consideration – but the extent of this policy depends on the results, whether good or harmful to the country, of the citizens of themselves. However, truly wise governments will also take other factors into consideration, with the main goal being to ensure future successes of the country.
	StingerBoy Pirates: Researcher

« Previous Topic · The Off-Topic Forum · Next Topic »

Announcements     Announcements AnimeSS Related Topics     Anime News     Anime Sub Request     Anime Free For ALL!! General Discussion     Welcome     The Off-Topic Forum     Pirate Crews         $TÎNGèRBØÝ þήÅTé§: Private Forum         Arya Family: Private Forum         Revolution Army: Private Forum     Forum Games     Graphics Forum     Technology Forum     Fanfiction     Debate Corner     Help and Suggestions Go