Blog Response 3
Article: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/070413/5/singapore270071.html
Compare the two, assistance for the needy and the parliamentary salary. Now which is worth pumping money into it more? For me, I would say the former. To summarize the entire article, on the view point of the government, the main argument of defense was that there is no apparent linkage between the two. There is not even a need for comparison since you cannot compare oranges with apples. However, I feel different about the entire issue.
I am not putting any side down, but I feel that the two events cannot be seen as two completely isolated events. If the parliamentary salary cannot be compared to the funds for assistance programs, then why should it, in the first place, be compared to the income of international organizations such as Hewlett-Packard?
Living in a society, it is true that at the top of the hierarchy, there is the government. However, the lower rungs are all made up people, groups of people. Some of these are better off than the others, and in a society, this community where we co-exist in, there will always be a group of people, who needs the assistance, who needs all the help that we can give. It does not matter how great or how strong your government is, prosperity is not gauged this way. It is instead, a measure of how your people live; it is a measure of how you take care of the needy. Now to say that government pay and assistance funds are completely separated in a society, how feasible is that idea actually?
On the other hand though, the government pay rise might not be all that a bad idea or move. If this little amount we are paying can guarantee us a corruption free and compassionate government for the future years to come, I do not see the reason as to why there would be a debate about this. But then, promises are still merely words. There is no way we can actually prove them till they happen. Let us hope that we will never have to prove it.
Whatever the case might be, the die is cast and the salaries had been raised. These debates that we hold are in fact kind of pointless. The government must have their reasons for doing what they did, and only almighty time will be able to tell if this decision is a good or a bad one. For now, what we can do is to continue helping those people who need our help, either by donating money or doing voluntary work. they constitute our society and as people living under that one single roof, we could and we should, render our fullest help to them in every way we can.
There has been a lot of debate over the rise in parliamentary salary ever since the news erupted a month back. Were they right in doing this? It is hard to debate over this question without any grounds to argue upon, and this article serves just that purpose.
Compare the two, assistance for the needy and the parliamentary salary. Now which is worth pumping money into it more? For me, I would say the former. To summarize the entire article, on the view point of the government, the main argument of defense was that there is no apparent linkage between the two. There is not even a need for comparison since you cannot compare oranges with apples. However, I feel different about the entire issue.
I am not putting any side down, but I feel that the two events cannot be seen as two completely isolated events. If the parliamentary salary cannot be compared to the funds for assistance programs, then why should it, in the first place, be compared to the income of international organizations such as Hewlett-Packard?
Living in a society, it is true that at the top of the hierarchy, there is the government. However, the lower rungs are all made up people, groups of people. Some of these are better off than the others, and in a society, this community where we co-exist in, there will always be a group of people, who needs the assistance, who needs all the help that we can give. It does not matter how great or how strong your government is, prosperity is not gauged this way. It is instead, a measure of how your people live; it is a measure of how you take care of the needy. Now to say that government pay and assistance funds are completely separated in a society, how feasible is that idea actually?
On the other hand though, the government pay rise might not be all that a bad idea or move. If this little amount we are paying can guarantee us a corruption free and compassionate government for the future years to come, I do not see the reason as to why there would be a debate about this. But then, promises are still merely words. There is no way we can actually prove them till they happen. Let us hope that we will never have to prove it.
Whatever the case might be, the die is cast and the salaries had been raised. These debates that we hold are in fact kind of pointless. The government must have their reasons for doing what they did, and only almighty time will be able to tell if this decision is a good or a bad one. For now, what we can do is to continue helping those people who need our help, either by donating money or doing voluntary work. they constitute our society and as people living under that one single roof, we could and we should, render our fullest help to them in every way we can.
Labels: Political/ Social
posted by Bennie @ 11:02 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home