For the past decade, government budgets have always been sweetened with "candies". This practice has become a habit, and expectations are so high among the general public that in recent years the Financial Secretary has had to cool it before his annual budget speech. This year, despite all the discouraging comments leaking from the government, we will see more candies in Wednesday's budget, because with over HK$10 billion surplus, the government simply cannot stop.

Let me first clarify what is commonly meant by candies. These are one-shot benefits in the budget available to all. As such, they are inevitably small and are not meant to provide long-term solutions to problems, just to give short-term reprieves. Candies are not supposed to fill the stomach, and people are never truly satisfied, as the real problems are still left unresolved. In fact, these problems are piling up.

The government first started dishing out candies when the economy was hit by the Asian Financial Crisis just after the handover. It was loaded with cash, and people expected it to do something about the situation. However, bound by its philosophy of small government, the Financial Secretary did not want to intervene through recurrent spending, and instead, dished out candies. Unfortunately this worked. The budget bills were passed as lawmakers all claimed credit, and the media was happy as it had something to report.

The rest, as they say, is history, and candy time is now an annual ritual. When the economy is bad, the government has to alleviate hardship by dishing out candies through a deficit budget. And in good times, the government of course has to spend part of its budget surplus through the dishing out of candies. When the polls are up, it has to give candies to maintain the high; and when they are down, all the more reasons for candies.

The bad news is, people's appetites are now growing bigger, and many will no longer be happy with just a few candies. The new budget will have to change its preoccupation with small government and its aversion to utilize recurrent expenditures to address certain problems.

The author is a member of the Commission on Strategic Development

(HK Edition 02/23/2010 page1)