One thing you could say for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s Budget 2013 is that at least it accurately reflects the Umno/BN philosophy of government: beggar the nation with ever-bigger projects for members and cronies and treat the rakyat like beggars by tossing them some small change.

Small change, in fact, could well in reality be the regime’s slogan, with infinitesimally small or even regressive changes to much-loathed laws against press freedom and the right to public protest misrepresented as “transformation”, and the occasional dispensation of a few lousy bucks to the poor and disadvantaged to try and buy their votes on the cheap.

Then this bunch of crooks tries to dress up the whole ugly mess with belief-beggaring statements like Najib’s lying claim as quoted by his mouthpiece ‘news’ agency Bernama that “the 2013 budget is not to fish for votes, but a commitment by the government to bring prosperity to the country”.