For fun

Since there's been so much talk lately about Govt expenditure and YOG, I was just curious as to how much our government spends on different items. So i did a quick look up of our Budget 2010 highlights and graphed the following chart based on their projected expenditure numbers

Budget 2010 Projected Total Expenditure

Data: MOF Budget 2010, Statistical Annex

Note: Total expenditure includes both Operating and Development Expenditure

Total expenditure projected for 2010 is S$46.4billion. Most of our government expenditure goes to defence spending (~S$11.5bn) , economic development (~S$9.8bn) and education (~S$9.7bn). Total projected expenditure for 2010 is about 1.6 times the amount we spent in 2005. The increase, however, may be unsurprising if you take into account that we have emerged from a recession and the government typically spends more during recessionary periods to make up for the shortfalls in demand. Clawing back spending is also never immediate as it takes time to phase out programs.

According to the Budget Expenditure overview, about S$166 million was set aside for youth development initiatives and a total of S$240.8 million would be allocated to support sports initiatives. Total spending on YOG amounted to about S$389 million, above and beyond its original budget of S$107 million.

why am i plonking all these numbers down? Well the whole debate in Singapore has got me thinking about how sometimes people argue about things without knowing the numbers or facts. So now that I have about a week's worth of free time, I'm doing a slow collation of data and trying to get a picture of the welfare and distribution of expenditure and income in Singapore for myself. next up would be to look at welfare indicators and actual expenditure numbers thus far (not projected). and to also compare maybe with OECD countries and other countries that hosted international games and their revenue from hosting activities.