vox populi small thumbnail 'This budget stinks! It has nothing much to help the people. Lower our income tax more as we are struggling with the recession. Give us tax relief for childcare and higher education.'

Arun Paul: RM50 fee per credit card? Already many are struggling to make ends with low salaries and higher living expenses. Here he comes and supports ruthless banks that really don't offer any respite to debtors that fall victim to the economic downturn! I guess I have to take my business elsewhere.

Koh Teng Gee: Due to leakages through corruption, the amount stated in the budget for government spending is always less than 100 percent. The more they spend, the more it goes to their cronies. This has been shown year after year in the Auditor-General reports.

Susah Citizen : So what is the game plan to address corruption? No matter how good the projections or sweet stuff looks, what's the point if the biggest hole in the system is not patched? Personally, I don't think this budget is going to make that much of an impact to the average man on the street.

Darren : There's nothing exciting. I give the budget a grade C. Those who worked on this budget did nothing out of the box. Najib should have thought global to attract foreign investment. Just watch, Thailand will overtake us by leaps and bounds. Thank God, we still have other underdeveloped countries in this region for comparison.

Fairnessforall : What an awful budget. Most of what is decided is only to allow the cronies to again make millions from all those projects. There will never be an end to corruption. The only one good thing is that expatriates married to locals will be quickly given PR (permanent residency).

First he (Najib) says he wants to increase spending, then he puts so additional charges on credit card users. Currently, financial institutions are killing all those who have lost their jobs by adding penalty interest and interest on interest, late payment charges and the like. This budget is useless to the man on the streets.

Maggie Lim: This budget stinks! It has nothing much to help the people. Lower our income tax more as we are struggling with the recession. Give us tax relief for childcare and higher education. It is so hard for parents to support their children's higher education.

Wira: Why only charge RM10,000 for each vehicle AP? Why not subject APs to open tender where each of the may fetch RM25,000 instead?

Why reserve those tax collected under this for the development of bumiputera enterprise in the automotive sector which is already being monopolised by bumiputera interests in Proton, Perodua and Naza?

Can you find a non-bumiputera car manufacturer making any cars using its own brand name? It is precisely because of subsidising inefficient local brand name like Proton that got us into this automobile mess in the first place.

Anwar wonders how gov't will tackle deficit

Barrister at law: Tackling the deficit is a challenge and the government will rise to it. Malaysians should not expect a solution from Anwar Ibrahim who almost destroyed the nation and its economy in the last recession.

As for Lim Guan Eng, where would we be if the nation listened to his father and did not pursue the Penang bridge as well as the massive infrastructure development and industrialisation which he opposed? The reality is that the opposition does not have the depth or even the maturity to deal with the economy.

Chandrasekar : Anwar should know that in India and China, labour is cheap. Even during his time when he was finance minister and deputy prime minister, our foreign direct investment wasn't very high.

Guan Eng, it is 1Malaysia and two systems because on one hand we have BN on the other, we have Pakatan Rakyat messing up in a few states. Really, it is 1Malaysia and two systems.

Tan Chee Kiong: Hello Chandrasekar, For your information, messing up the whole country is BN not Pakatan. The mess in Perak, Selangor and Penang was created by BN. I will support Pakatan for they did not deceive and steal from the people. Didn't you see the Auditors-General's report, Penang is the most well-managed state, which was unheard of under BN/Gerakan rule.

MACC officers grill S'gor exco for 2 hours

Anak Bangau: MACC is definitely an Umno tool. It will act swiftly with regards to any case that involves Pakatan Rakyat even when there is no hard evidence.

Now there is an Auditor-General report which clearly exposed the mismanagement of public funds totaling hundreds million of ringgit. All this committed by BN/Umno cronies and corrupted government officers collaborating with those BN/Umno politicians. But MACC just ignores them. And yet they say they are independent.

Ong : Being a "special assistant" to a DAP exco has become the world's most hazardous job. One is dead. Another now needs a crutch to move around. Potential candidates had better demand five times the normal salary plus personal accident and life insurance.

Loh Lo Mei : MACC has absolutely no right to question anyone right now because its credibility is so questionable. Nothing it does will ever be credible or justifiable, however hard it tries.

The entire agency should just be razed to the ground and re-built from scratch with an entirely new set of people with unquestionable integrity though getting there would be another challenge.