You don`t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala
Over the years, I have come to understand one thing very well: when it comes to editorials on the Budget, a finance minister is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn`t. Partly, this is because leader writers have very little time to digest the full import of it and largely because they are not experts in analysing the finance bill which contains all the mischief.
Thus when P Chidambaram presented his `Dream Budget` ten years ago, and reduced tax rates dramatically, there were many who said he had got it almost completely wrong because the need of the hour was greater revenues for the government. It was a different matter, of course, that the same chaps had been saying for the previous quarter of a century that tax rates were too high.
This time the poor man has done practically nothing of any consequence - except perhaps the ill-advised tax on ESOPs - and everyone is saying he should have done much more. Maybe he should have but surely an equally important question is whether he could have done more.
The Hindu was very measured in its criticism because, after all, you do not criticise a finance minister too shrilly, especially if he happens to be from your state. Thus, after saying that the government had been "basking in the glow of unprecedented growth," it went on to say that "the effort in the budget clearly falls short of the rhetoric". Rhetoric, I thought, is meant to be fallen short of but never mind.
The Telegraph, poor thing, couldn`t make up its mind. It, too, doesn`t want to annoy a finance minister. So this is what it wrote. " The current budget falls short of the lofty standards set by him, even though the prevailing rates of economic growth offered the best opportunity to bat with flourish. The budget may even be labelled "pedestrian" by his detractors. But this is an uncharitable interpretation." Come on, darling, make up your silly mind.
The Indian Express got it broadly right, though. "The sensible way to look at this budget is not in terms of all the reforms the FM didn`t announce, but how much real damage politics has extracted. On that the verdict must be: not much." But then it went off on song and dance sequence that was a paean really. It would have hugely warmed the finance minister`s cockles but surely even if he didn`t deserve to be condemned, nor did he deserve praise beyond the call of duty.
The Deccan Herald merely summarised the budget highlights and the Pioneer took its customary, nay obligatory, swipe at the Nehru family. Even in an edit on the Budget, the paper had to do that. How tiresome can you get? Just read this:
"… a regime that cannot think big and suffers from tunnel vision can ill-afford to camouflage its severe shortcomings in managing the nation`s economy by seeking refuge in Nehruvian wisdom. India`s first Prime Minister had a grand vision and pursued it with matching passion; those who claim to have inherited his political legacy… are known to think small and act smaller. The Union Budget for 2007-08 exemplifies this point."
The Business Standard called the Budget a `smoke and mirrors` game that " Mr Chidambaram has made a fine art of… but people are beginning to see through it." True, but then don`t all Budgets contain some elements of that?
On the issue question of ESOPs being a fringe benefit and therefore worthy of being taxed, it said "the imposition of the fringe benefit tax on employee stock option schemes will hit companies on a high growth track the hardest… they will face an extra burden even though they earn no extra money."
This is an important issue on which the Indian Express went right off the track saying "taxing ESOPs is not the issue, the question is whether FBT is the right tax for it." What does that mean, pray?
My vote goes to the Financial Express which alone asked the question worth asking, "D id he do any substantive harm? The broad answer must be no." That, I think, was the best way to judge the Budget.
The rest was just flummery.