While many characterise the newly released budget as being full of ‘goodies’, there has one segment of society that has been glaringly left out in the cold. For those like me who fall within the category of being middle or lower middle class, the government does not seem to be offering a solution to the growing economic hardship being experienced in the face of a rising cost of living, and increasing charges for sundries and services.

What then does the future hold for the future middle class in Malaysia? Their income disqualifies them for the majority of government aid programs, yet is becoming increasingly insufficient to maintain a life in our cities and urban sprawls.

If this condition continues, we will soon suffer a fate similar to our neighbours Indonesia, and the Philippines as we watch our middle class become extinct. The economic divide between the rich and the poor will widen drastically, leaving us with a fractured society, and severely hampered economic growth. How then we achieve the PM’s vision of a digital Malaysia?

The government efforts to alleviate the burden of the lower income classes with one-off financial aid while well-meaning will do little to help these recipients through the hardships ahead. Analysts predict that Malaysia will become a net importer of energy (oil and gas) by the year 2014.

This will surely result in a severe inability of the government to continue supporting the subsidies all Malaysians currently enjoy. Despite the overly optimistic estimations of economic growth being heralded by the PM, it is a pipe-dream to believe that these subsidies will continue indefinitely.

Instead of continuing along the current path, which will surely result in the subsidies being suddenly removed completely in the near future, the government should be taking steps to gradually ease the transition to subsidy removal. It is better that we swallow a little bitterness now than to be plunged into a more serious financial situation later.

This begs the bigger question of the validity of the deputy prime minister’s claim that the 2012 Budget is a budget that guarantees people’s future. It seems to be mired instead in out-dated and unrealistic strategies that at best will only function as stop-gap measures and at worse, leave the majority of the public unprepared for the economic hurdles ahead.

Furthermore, the omission of concrete allocations or incentives for ‘green’ or environmental technology and practices within various industries, sustainable and renewable energy sources, as well as a key issues relating to public transport,  water and sewerage services, and the mitigation of climate change effects, shows a distinct lack of forward thinking.

Without development in these areas and a strong infrastructure system to support these initiatives, we will ultimately be left behind, as the rest of the world has already recognised their importance and is moving towards these ideals as a means of securing a viable future for themselves.

Our future on the other hand, looks decidedly bleak, and it remains to be seen how the government plans to address the situation before it becomes dire.