Too Bad PM is Also MOF. Budget 2027 – My Version of an Overhaul Budget

Welcome back to Gutshot. I'm Sam. Look, last week PMX stood up in parliament and handed us the fifth Mandari budget at a record 459.84 billion federal budget. And the mainstream media line is oh look at the safety nets. Look at the goodies for in election year. Actually the true total commitment is closer to 510 billion ringit once you factor in offbudget commitments and liabilities. But even based on their own headline figures, our debt service charges alone will reach 61.01 billion and at an increase of 6.5% swallowing 16.2% 2% of our entire operating expenditure just to pay

interest on past debts. I've digested the whole thing and let me tell you straight I am not impressed. All I saw was crumbs. 376.8 billion in operating expenditure for 2027. That is 81.9% of that massive federal budget, a 3.8 increase from 2026. It is swallowed whole just to fit operating bloat, civil service redundancy, and protected monopolies. That isn't an economic strategy. That's number tinkering while the systemic engines of our nation rust out. That leaves barely 83 billion for development capital. We are spending hundreds of billions just to keep a bloated inefficient government

engine running while leaving real transformative capital investment in the dust. So today we throw out the accountant mindset. I'm giving you the world according to Sam. A complete sweeping alternative budget of overhaul of how a businessman would run the nation. We are talking zero SST and cutting top income tax to 20%. a 15% blanket slash on government bloat and capping cabinet at 10 to 15 ministry top ending our addiction to cheap foreign labor and targeting 8% real GDP growth just to name a few. Stop running a nation like your father's money and start running it like the

ultimate wealth generating corporation for its shareholder. The Rayat. Fire up the mics. Let's get into it. Here's the philosophy I have which is overhaul over tinkering. This is a direct alternative to what PMX presented. I do not care for micro tinkering with numbers. I care about proposing a sweeping overhaul that addresses our structural and systemic rot. This is exactly why I want to lead this change. As a businessman, I view the federal budget through the lens of a of performance and value. how to run government as the ultimate corporation working for our shareholders citizens.

You do not tinker with numbers when your revenue model and productivity suffer from systemic damage. You overhaul the business model. Here are my three core priorities. Revenue generation. It is driven by private sector growth and velocity, not government spending or extra taxation. Cutting operational expenditure, eliminate non-essential bloat, stopping leakages and crushing economic corruption, redirecting those savings directly into two core social economic priorities, public education and healthcare. economic stimulus. We inject real liquidity by lowering the

cost of doing business, deregulating, dismantling monopolies and cartels and opening up access to funding. That is the blueprint. Ladies and gentlemen, let us start with focus one, revenue overhaul and the liquidity bridge. First, bring down our progressive personal income tax rate from a high of 30% to 25% targeting 20% within 3 years. Eliminate the service tax completely. And what about businesses? PMX stood out and bragged about giving small enterprises a microscopic 1 percentage point corporate tax cut, dropping lower tiers to 14% and 16% while leaving standard corporate tax sitting at a

heavy 24%. That is not an economic growth strategy. That is throwing crumbs at a starving man. I would overhaul the entire corporate tax structure. Drop the standard corporate tax rate to a flat comparative 18% across the board for all companies. Give our homegrown businesses real financial oxygen to expand, automate, and dominate the regional market. Let us put real cash back into the hands of our people to spend and into companies to reinvest and pay better wages based on actual profitability. That is how you organically raise wages, not through artificial political

decrease like PMX push to a 2,000 rig minimum wage. All that does is spike input costs which small enterprises pass straight onto consumers as inflation. And then mainstream economies wonder why real purchasing power never catches up. Small businesses that cannot cope will stop hires or cut people or close shop. Now, typical accountant and moneyman economist will scream, "Oh, Sam, too much loss to in government revenue." Abolishing SST and lowering income taxes creates an immediate 50 billion to 60 billion fiscal gap. You're going to bankrupt the country. To that, I say go fly kite.

Let us address the short-term liquidity gap with borrow with without uh borrowing a single ringit. Here's what I will do. Phase one, asset monetization and dividend sweep within the within the first 12 months. We perform a non-core asset sweep across state investment vehicles. We unlock 20 billion to 25 billion ringit through partial IPO floats of non-strategic GLC subsidiaries and I will not hesitate to scare the political GLC ecosystem. We will float partial IPOs for Petronas Chargali, Chargali International, Pangarang Refining and Prochemical, Petronus Lubricant and Petronas Digital.

That's just for a start. Let us also partial IPO maybe all. I don't care. Gentari, the state renewable initiative currently competing against private solar firms. If it is not commercially viable, market pricing will tell us immediately and we shut it down. Operational cost realization. We can do it within 16 to 18 months. We enforce a 15% non-essential procurement cut and administrative cost reduction that frees up 12 billion to 15 billion annually that bridges our 18month liquidity runaway. Mind you uh this is me just doing this alone. Imagine if I have the finance ministry at my disposal.

By year two, the multiplier effect on on an 18% corporate tax rate and zero SST will drive business velocity and profit and corporate profitability organically expanding the tax base and generating higher net tax yields than a higher tax low growth regime ever could. Removing SST instantly slashes input costs for businesses and retail prices for consumers. That money does not vanish. It recirculates immediately into private consumption and enterprise expansion. That is the difference between a businessman and accountants. Businessmen project forward based on enterprise creation.

Accountants count what came before and extrapolate backward. I'm targeting 8% real GDP growth for Malaysia driven by supply side deregulation, long-term FDI and industrial capacity. not state debt expansion. The second focus, let's cut the bloat and reform the public services. Now, let us turn to that. Number one, GLC and monopoly reforms. Let's force government discipline. No more bailouts. Period. If a GLC or GIC make losses, taxpayer will not save it. We will write this into law. Any restructuring must be private sector initiated and funded by private white

knight capital. Abolish all political appointee on boards and management. Float these entities at real market valuation and open their oligopies to open competition. No more toll road monopolies. We will not breach existing contracts arbitrarily, but we will institute market rate buyout schedules or build parallel open access networks that let market competition dismantle state monopolies. And by the way, all those agreements on those concession under OSA, we will open it up for the public to review. Let TNB compete for efficiency with independent energy distributors.

We will invite global funds to build infrastructure and compete to deliver the lowest energy costs to consumers. Let's talk about the civil service and cabinet. We enforce a 15% blanket cut across total uh total opex civil service in molmans and pension swallow well over 100 mill 100 billion a year more than 30% of operating expenditure. A 15% slash frees up 15 billion in hard cash annually. Start at the top. A maximum of 10 to 15 cabinet ministries with zero deputy ministers and zero lavish entourage. Ministerial posts are not price tokens for political horse trading. Pension eligibility

requires serving at least two full terms as an MP or adun payable only for one post whichever is the highest. We need to reform bureaucracy standards. We cut administrative bloat through hiring freezes upon natural attrition. Re-establish intan and PTD training to rigorous standards of integrity and discipline. All senior civil servants must be fluent in English and possess strong critical decision making skills. Those who fall who f who fail rigorous standards will be retired and replaced by younger highly capable talent. Three, defense spending. Let's cut military

capex and OPEX. Defense currently consumes over 21 billion annually. A strict 10% cut releases over 2.1 billion annual shaving annually. Shaving 1.5 billion ringit of administrative bloat while trimming almost 620 million of vanity weapon procurement. redirect those savings to exclusively towards essential coastal patrol vessels for our coast guard domestic airspace surveillance and military troops training. Malaysia will not engage in regional arms race. Number four, education and health care by investing those saved OPECs. PMX brags and records about record

spending in these ministries, but most of it get eated up by administrative overhead. We redirect safe OPEC directly into private private public partnerships including injecting private sector quality modern facilities and industry aligned STEM, English language, technical education, economics into our public schools along with upgraded public health care services. For higher education, we need to audit all public universities. Close faculties that do not contribute directly to STEM, economic, commerce or technical preparation. Entry must be strictly merit-based and free of racial quotas.

Administrative overhead in universities will be kept at 10% of core teaching costs. Let's do all that. Let's look at welfare reform. While we talk about public spending, we need to also address social welfare. However, PMX boast about pouring a record 15 billion to6 billion into handouts tonight and Sara handling out 100 ringgit vouchers to 9 million people as if buying goodwill excuses structural poverty. That is a state sponsored dependency trap. That's not compassion. My alternative is a productivity league enterprise net. Conditional microequity and skills.

Let's transition cash away from passive consumption into conditional microequity grants, wage matching for skill acquisition and direct funding for local micro business ventures. Let's have commercial milestones for those fit to work. The state co-invest in reskilling subsidize private apprentichip or provide zero interest equipment capital backed by strict commercial milestones. We should have targeted protection for the genuinely vulnerable, our elderly, disabled, and single parents. We double direct welfare protection through streamline automated payouts by cutting

out bureaucratic middleman. Instead of spreading 15 billion thinly across 9 million passive recipients, channeling targeted matching grants into the B40 workforce of 3 million households will directly lift over 1.2 million undermployed individuals into productive capital ownership. We stop treating 60% of our population as helpless welfare recipients. Let's talk immigration, labor normalization, and protect ourme from China export of cheap over capacity. Border corruption and overburdened healthcare and education s and education system stem directly from uncontrolled immigration.

This uncontrolled immigration is a cartel. I'm unapologetically Malaysia first. We must cap lowkilled foreign labor in FMB services, hotels and general sectors to under 3% within 5 years. Yes, businesses will scream about short-term labor shocks, but that shock is necessary to force rapid automation, TV adoption, and wage normalization for locals and training. Finally, ending our economist addiction to cheap foreign labor. But at the end we need to seriously face the global phenomena of China's cheap export of unrestricted partial or otherwise in goods and

services that is decimating our mainly ethnic Chinesedriven theme sector. This is the backbone of our economy. our Chinese businesses. I have authored a lengthy article published on the front page of the forum segment in the edge the October 12th to 18 edition. This is a must readad. I will not elaborate further. Let's look at the third focus economic stimulus and FDI. Finally, domestic economic stimulus and targeted FDI must be done to through deregulation and access to capital. We should deregulate and expand banking, lower the cost of doing business across the board,

eliminate unnecessary business licensing, issue new banking and financial services licenses to invite competition from global institutions, banks and insurers. Positioned at the heart of Southeast Asia, Malaysia can attract immense capital for capital from China, Japan, Taiwan, and the US. Imagine the capital inflow into our financial system if we incentivize banks to lend directly to our SMMES. Focus FDI recruitment strictly to high value industrial production specifically electrical and electronics the END sector high-end eco and cultural tourism ship building ship repair and major

upstream and downstream oil and gas infrastructure. Our true private sector must drive this economy, not parachute CEOs and political boards of GLC's. Then let's rethink agriculture. Stop prioritizing agriculture as a primary national growth industry. It yields low economic productivity per acre and makes little sense for a land constrained nation like ours. Malaysia currently suffers a massive food import deficit. Forget the myth of full food self-sufficiency. Instead of pouring billions into inefficient local subsidies and protecting cartels like Bernas rice

monopoly, pursue a peaceful regional trade policy with our Assean neighbors. Importing food efficiently from regional neighbors who produce at scale drops food inflation for our riad immediately. Turn our beautiful, serene, and unique petty fields and agriculture lands into high-end tourism destination. Have a change in mindset. In conclusion, a federal budget must be a tool to solve structural socioeconomic problems, not a political scorecard, not a tinkering of numbers and a kicking the can exercise down the provial road whilst business as usual continues and Sakow never stops

from validity projects, the civil service procurement and GLC and GLIC ecosystem to the now even the infamous corporate mafia. The official theme of budget 27 27 was Malaysia Madi Mapai. Boy man, this guy really knows how to serve up a word salad. More like another pie in the sky. And that is the world according to Sam. You can keep listening to the money man and political bean counters tell you why nothing can change or you can look at the real numbers and think differently. We do not fix a broken economy with tax hikes, tweaks and crumbs. We fix it with sweeping structural overhaul, private

sector growth, and absolute fiscal discipline. If you are tired of number tinkering and want a real unfiltered economic perspective, hit that subscribe button right now. Share this episode. Drop your thoughts in the comments and tell me are you ready for an is for an Asian tiger reboot or are you staying with the status quo saka squid and scrums? This is why I joined party bangsa Malaysia. It is the only party that will allow me to lead and be the real hope to build a coalition for a Malaysian overhaul. Until next time, keep questioning the narrative, guys. We have a country to

save. Thank you.