Budget 2025: The genius of the CDC voucher

At the risk of oversimplifying, I believe the government learned much from working out the budgets during at least two pivotal periods. It picked up lessons which it applies to the benefit of Singaporeans today in Budget 2025.

The first was making a decision around 2011/2 to commit itself to making sure Singaporeans had good healthcare. The second was the multiple multi-billion-dollar Covid-19 budgets.

Thrift – or rather, overcaution – had always ruled the day. We are not talking about helping businesses get back on their feet as in the Asian financial crisis.

We had adopted a heart of stone towards anything that smelled of welfare state values. You earned your keeps. No one else was going to come to your rescue.

That attitude changed when we actually discovered at least three things. Health is the responsibility of society/state. A healthy citizenry is vital for higher productivity, if not the quality of the society. And Singapore has an ageing population.

We had the financial resources to commit to a world-class public health system. And we did, finally. Pioneer, Merdeka, and Majulah Singaporeans benefited from the change of heart.

Statistically, we could have narrowed everything down to the last person and done advanced planning. We already had the data.

Not yet.

This came only during Covid-19.

I remember that the first pandemic budget was actually touted as a kind of record. One that would cover all costs and angles.

It proved to be inadequate. Loss of jobs and earnings, disruption to businesses, impact on tourism and trade – every one of these was a big item. Only after a number of Covid-19 budgets was the crisis brought under control.

Coping with big financial issues, in fact, was not the main story emerging from these recent experiences.

The government has, indeed, learnt from trial and error that the budget as an instrument can be very simple.

I happen to believe now that the CDC voucher is almost a genius invention. A very direct and simple instrument, it reaches every household, with the ones most in need, the lower-incomers, benefitting the most.

Tan Bah Bah is a former senior leader writer with The Straits Times. He was also managing editor of a magazine publishing company