I refer to the Malaysiakini report PM slashes spending in Budget 2010 .

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s 2010 budget proclaims an overriding goal of driving us to a ‘high-income economy’. And what is a high-income economy? His speech does not define it, although he drops some hints.

‘1Malaysia’ is supposed to become more innovative, more creative, engaging in higher value- added activities. Nothing is said of actually earning a higher income.

The ideology buttressing this budget holds that investment incentives and loans spur output or GDP growth, and the benefits trickle down to ordinary working people.

Aside from a few subsidies to potentially boost self-employment among the poor, deliver welfare services to the needy and expand access to home ownership, savings and insurance, there are hardly any measures squarely dealing with the question of how we might raise workers’ earnings and income.

Najib appears to have adopted conventional terminology which conveniently equates national income with national output. Our attaining a high-income status clearly refers to national income. But the budget also mentions ‘low-income’ families, obviously referring to the amounts that people live off, and not national income.

The confusion is telling and troubling.

‘1Malaysia’ aspires for select trophies that presumably correspond with high-income status, among which are stellar technology, swanky regional economic zones, rankings-studded universities, zero hardcore absolute poverty, laws protecting whistle-blowers etc (Some of these objectives are laudable, some are questionable, but that’s another story).

In pursuit of the above, ‘1Malaysia’ overlooks other features of high-income economies and advanced societies, notably minimum wage laws, mechanisms to continually address relative poverty, a dignified and well-remunerated teaching profession, school curricula that encourage critical and innovative thinking and corruption-fighting agencies that people trust.

The trouble is that the desired and neglected things are interdependent. How will the economy be spurred to a higher technology and higher value-added if we do not put upward pressure on wages through minimum wage enactment and other means?

We will remain in the same low-wage, low-value added trap. How will schools and universities excel unless they attract the best and brightest to be educators? We will only perpetuate mediocrity and conformity.

Can corruption be curbed if dark clouds hang over anti-corruption authorities, clouds that the government plans to scatter by literally blowing hot air? It is interesting that Najib’s speech outlines how the government plans to ‘enhance the image of the MACC’ through ‘awareness campaigns through the mass media as well as promoting better public relations’.

Budget 2010 makes no allocation for mechanisms to implement a minimum wage or for a transformative 10-year programme to overhaul the entire education system. Or for recording devices in MACC interrogation rooms.

Well, no one should be surprised. Like the ‘1Malaysia’ brand, it’s full of sweetness and ambition but short on substance and foundation.