Ideas and Ideal in a Budget

The 2019 national budget has been widely commented upon by several leading economists and commentators who have subjected it to a critical analytical scrutiny. The pragmatic orientation of a budget is too obvious to be overlooked. It has followed the age-old precedent of accommodation of competing interests, even though this is beset with several contradictions. Although the central government makes rhetorical claims that it focuses on pro-poor reforms, at the operational level, the allocations in the budget have also been made keeping in view the appeasing of certain social groups, such as the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the middle classes. It also acknowledges that the category of poor is not a politically effective category, and hence the need to break it down into concrete specificities. On the one hand,

although the budget has increased taxation on the super-rich, like those earning `2 crore, to contribute to the growth of the economy, it still has to cajole the corporate sector for investment of resources.