Lai See | John Tsang's budget takes too much out of people's pockets

Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah yesterday treated us to the by now familiar game of appearing to be generous by doling out "sweeteners" in his budget while at the same extracting more than he needs to from people's pockets.

The sweeteners have become an essential element of Tsang's budgets ever since he was forced into that embarrassing climb down in 2011 after sharp public protests and gave everyone HK$6,000.

However, this year was sweeter than most, amounting to HK$34 billion, which is a 70 per cent increase over last year.

Given the government's unpopularity and the raw mood of the public post-Occupy, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the thinking behind this move.

Indeed it was more or less the unstated main theme of the budget. Last year's giveaways were announced in paragraph 145 of the budget speech; this year's good news was elevated to paragraph 26.

There was less emphasis this year on phony scare stories like Hong Kong's ageing problem. The population may be ageing but it is not necessarily a problem. Tsang came in for some criticism last year over the great play he made of spending on infrastructure while uttering dark threats about having to raise taxes to pay for the elderly. He is still spending on infrastructure, although not making such a big deal of it.

Despite the huge increase in giveaways, they won't make much of a dent in government finances since the windfall HK$29.7 billion from stamp duty will have accounted for most of that HK$34 billion.