Dear Jamus Lim: why do you lie?
How do you get up in the morning and look in the mirror knowing that you're about to start another day shamelessly misleading millions of Singaporeans, going as far as abusing your parliamentary privilege to spew outright falsehoods, only to play on their insecurities for your personal, political gain?
Sparks will be flying in this post, because I'm absolutely appalled by the series of lies peddled by the Workers' Party of late, one worse than the other.
It seems that Singapore's resident populists have sensed blood and are going for the kill, driven by an observation of ignorance among the local masses that the party clearly believes it can thrive on rather than constructively work to dispel.
Ironically, in the image published under his latest post, Jamus Lim inadvertently showed what WP thinks of millions of Singaporeans - that they are gullible sheep, who will believe any lie he and his pals will cook up, in complete disagreement with basic facts and figures. But hey, it was "just a meme" (or was it?).
Because, quite clearly, Singaporeans are not being fleeced, let alone skinned to the bone by local taxation, which for the vast majority of the society is inexistent.
Here are the facts:
1. Singaporeans pay some of the lowest income taxes in the world.
2. Even at 9%, Singaporeans are still paying one of the lowest sales tax rates in the world.
3. Unlike in more socialist countries of the West, Singaporeans own every penny in their CPF, so suggesting that their incomes are somehow being bled by contributions to the fund is another obvious lie. This money is set aside for healthcare, housing needs or pensions. EVERY-SINGLE-DOLLAR. If the government takes any of it it's either for services rendered or profitable investment that yields positive returns to every resident.
4. Sure, Singaporeans pay a lot more for cars, COE, ERP and so on - but only that fraction of the society that owns them and DECIDES TO PAY. If you have forgotten (I'm sure you haven't, what makes it even worse), COE is an AUCTION where people place their own BIDS - i.e. the amount THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY for the privilege of owning a car. Billions of dollars raised this way - and in no way imposed on the society - are then funding Singapore's world-class public transit system whose fares are a fraction of what people pay in any large city.
5. Government redistribution amounts to over S$5000 per person per year, effectively making the majority of the society net tax recipients not payees.
6. 80% of income taxes are paid by Top 10% wealthiest residents. 60% of GST is paid by Top 20% + foreigners. 25% the national budget is funded with corporate taxation and further 20% of with returns from NIRC - investments from reserves that you and your colleagues want to pillage by diverting more money from reserves to current spending, thus reducing their future value and leading to increased tax burden on the society that would inevitably follow.
7. Singapore's public housing is among the most affordable in the world and it has remained as affordable, in proportion to median incomes, as it was 40 years ago.
8. GST is not regressive. A qualified academic should understand that the tax is not levied on income, that's the first thing. Secondly, with all of the benefits provided by the government in Singapore, the real effective tax rate of GST depends on income and is the lowest (almost non-existent at around 1% of income) for the poorest locals. I wrote about it before.
So, let me repeat, Mr. Lim, why do you lie?
And I do make this accusation because this isn't some difference of opinion or perspective. The fact that Jamus Lim shamelessly peddles falsehoods is indisputably provable with basic figures that he chooses to obscure or misrepresent.
But it appears to be the modus operandi of the Workers' Party, currently led by a person who wanted to convince everybody in full view that words can change meaning to whatever he wants to, after he spent months knowing that his MP continued to lie in the parliament and felt compelled to act only when police was knocking on her door.
And just days ago, another party comrade tried to say that WP did not advocate for reducing housing supply mere 3 years ago, despite the fact that it is written in quite plain English in the party's own policy document. It proposed only one measure to address housing woes and not one that would increase the actual supply of housing by a single apartment, as it relied on already existing stock.
You yourself, Mr. Lim, have a long stream of similar lies, one after one misleading the people to the point I have no clue how you are allowed to actually teach anybody anything on any topic even remotely related to economics.
You used your parliamentary privilege to claim that Japan saw a doubling of the inflation rate with each GST increase, despite the fact that in each case that inflation bump was much less than the actual tax hike was, since Japan's long-time problem has been deflation.
You cited an ancient paper by Paul Krugman who, in the 1990s, peddled the idea that drivers of Singapore's economic growth are no different than those of Stalin's USSR (yes, that's exactly what he claimed). And on this basis you made some sweeping claims about local productivity today (you who have never produced a thing yourself).
You also deliberately - unless we assume you simply have no idea what other economists you cite have actually said - misquoted a Nobel prize winner about his observations on minimum wage, who received the prestigious award not for the findings in his particular study but methods applied.
And one who has long lamented that duplicitous characters - i.e. like yourself - have used his study to make claims he has never made himself. You have yet to make a correction or apology for that. Will you?
Need I remind you how, at the same time, you dismissed opposition from - oh the irony - local trade unionists (you know, the very people who - unlike you - actually work to elevate local workers) as "folksy wisdom"?
You, who have never employed anybody, who have never sat down at the negotiating table, who never made any decision that would have actual consequences for anybody?
It's just one lie after lie, after lie, after lie - all incredibly harmful to society and directly or not denigrating the people who actually made Singapore the envy of the world. And it seems to be increasingly the norm in WP.
It used to be, like min. Balakrishnan observed in one of the TV exchanges ahead of GE2020, that the Workers' Party was half a step to the left of the PAP. Just piggy-backing on the government's policies, always trying to promise people a bit more handouts.
But even then Low Thia Khiang still emphasized the sanctity of national reserves, exhibiting a modicum of responsibility, which is now clearly out of the window.
Today, WP is giving me Viktor Orban vibes.
The party's leader has just attacked new citizens (proposing mandatory English examination, in clear violation of the national pledge), while his troops are making one preposterous claim after another. Are you attempting to lie your way into power and then bribe the society into submission at huge future expense, consequences of which you will never get to bear?
(If Singaporeans want to see how that future may look, I would invite them to check how things are going in Budapest.)
I understand that not everybody may like or agree with the PAP. I know that people are different and there are, indeed, many differences of opinion between them or the ideas on how to solve various issues in society.
But how can you lie so brazenly when facts and figures prove something completely different? How can you suggest Singaporeans are being fleeced when they aren't? How can you claim CPF constitutes this fleecing? How can you suggest it's so bad that all they're left with are bare bones, as if the government took most of what they make every month?
And, most importantly, how are you able to go on about your life saying all of those things? Do you have no shame?
