It was a showdown in parliament that would have put the liveliest of reality TV dramas to shame. As we tuned into the first of the budget bill duel days, we witnessed the equivalent of political gladiators clashing swords over the nation’s fiscal future.
Leading the charge with verbal jabs was Jurin, who came out swinging against the Pheu Thai Party. The crux of his fiery soliloquy? The party’s penchant for political puppetry and a seeming betrayal that would make Julius Caesar’s fall look like a friendly spat. He proclaimed with fervor that they busied themselves with backstabbing the Move Forward ally rather than getting the wheels of government turning. And, dear reader, the drama didn’t end there.
“The administration,” Jurin lamented, with the pomp and circumstance of a seasoned thespian, “squandered precious months in a tangled web of treachery, dragging its feet before bestowing its royal nod on this budget bill.” He pointed out with a flourish that by the time the bill came into play in May, seven months would have turned to dust, leaving a mere five to sprinkle the fiscal seeds bestowed upon them. “That’s a pitiful 40% operational capacity; our budgetary bird is less eagle soaring high, more lame duck ailing in the pond,” he declared.
The clouds of doubt hung heavy over the parliament floor as Jurin cast a skeptical gaze on the government’s ability to breathe life into the economy in such a truncated timeline.
And now, let’s peel back the layers of this onion of a budget bill, shall we?
Jurin weaved his narrative, pointing out four Achilles’ heels of the proposed fiscal plan with the precision of a master strategist. He first took aim at what he deemed a glaring pivot from a book-balanced budget to one bleeding red with a 630 billion baht deficit. “A fiscal tightrope walk without the safety net,” he quipped.
He then bemoaned the bulging fixed expenditures—130 billion baht plumper—offering a stark contrast to the meager 10% pittance thrown at the investment budget. “Where’s the catalyst for economic rejuvenation?” he pleaded to the rafters, pausing for dramatic effect.
Next, he called out an intriguing contradiction, like a sleuth unveiling the twist in a murder mystery. The Pheu Thai Party, once the vocal critic of colossal sums funneled into an emergency fund by its predecessors, now found itself dishing out an even heartier 98 billion baht plate of the very same fiscal stew.
Then came the pièce de résistance: a jab at the government’s borrowing binge. With a wry smile, Jurin dubbed the current prime minister the ‘pink-sock borrower’, an ode to Srettha’s sartorial flair in sock selection—but more so a dig at the hefty 693 billion baht loan, overshadowing the prior regime’s 593 billion borrow.
The borrowing spree, Jurin noted with a twinkle of irony, included a hi-tech hocus-pocus with the 500 billion baht digital wallet scheme—a financial magic trick he found highly doubtful, begging the question of its repayment feasibility without a whisper of it in the 2024 budget projection.
Fast-forwarding past a few more entertaining observations on the budget’s shortcomings, including a pointed query about the potential preferential treatment of certain former prime ministers, Jurin concluded with a crescendo. He implored Srettha to unfurl the sails of transparency in spending, implying that the winds of a censure debate might just be on the horizon.
Before the Pheu Thai could wield their rhetorical retort, the House Speaker Wan Muhammad Noor Matha sliced through the tension. With the gravitas of a headmaster restoring order, he declared that the debate must go on.
And so readers, the budget battle rages within the hallowed halls, each side parrying and riposting with the hope of emerging victorious in this grand fiscal joust. It’s government, it’s politics—it’s a riveting saga we simply can’t peel our eyes away from.
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