Chitchat Why Jamus Lim join Workers' Party ?

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Jamus came across some plants and artwork.

Jamus Lim​

14 hrs ·
During our house visit this week—where we wrapped up 335B #Anchorvale—we stumbled on a breathtaking sight. The neighbors had come together, and agreed to beautify the common corridor with plants and artwork. The end result was a dramatic transformation of the common space, one that brings joy to the residents every day when they come home (it even improved resale values! One of the residents shared that a new neighbor had put down an offer on the place almost immediately once they saw how charming the exterior space was).
For me, the project is an example of what can happen when neighbors get along, and make a concerted effort to improve their surroundings. We occasionally receive complaints by one neighbor against another about items placed in the common areas. Our advice—beyond sharing that the rules generally only require a 1.2 meter clearance with no combustible materials, and no permanent fixtures—is that living in shared spaces tends to require some give and take. And when neighbors are able to come together, the result can be extraordinary. #TeamSengkang #SengkangGRC

 

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Jamus and WP disagree with Lawrence and PAP.

Jamus Lim​

5 hrs ·
At the commencement of this session of Parliament, Prime Minister Lee expressed his hope that, with a more sizable Opposition, there would be more sophisticated policy debate, with alternatives instead of just objections being offered. My #workersparty colleagues and I took that charge seriously. So when the GST hike was proposed, we took pen to paper, and worked out a range of revenue options that we felt could stave off the need to raise GST. By our estimates, the hole that GST would fill is around $3.6 billion. So we went ahead and worked out four different ways—we call these levers—that we could pull in more revenue, each built around a different theme.
The first option increases effective taxes on MNCs, while leaving SMEs untouched. Our increase simply assumes full compliance with the OECD BEPS treaty (which we’ve signed). To enhance realism, we even allow for bleed in the income tax take for corporations and individuals. This corporate tax lever will yield $3.5 bn. So, while we’ll lose when some firms relocate and others pay revenue at their points of sale, we also save on needing to undercut others with corporate tax goodies. Others have corroborated how our tax take under BEPS could rise.
The second option extracts some revenue from land sales, higher property taxes, and wealth taxes. Basically, those with more assets contribute more, which is also a way to help address soaring inequality, something many Singaporeans care about. This asset tax lever will yield $3.7 bn. Does this “punish” success? That’s one way to look at it. Another way to see it is that those who have been more blessed, contribute back more. In most cases, the well-to-do won’t be made worse off; their wealth just grows slower.
A third option is to change the share of our net investment returns contribution (NIRC) that we plough back into reserves—currently an arbitrary 50 percent—to 60 percent. This reserves lever will raise $4.3 bn. It is important to stress that this approach doesn’t run down our reserves. It just builds it up more slowly. As much as we want to invest for the future, we shouldn’t neglect the needs of the present. It doesn’t make sense to live in a giant house but eat kaya roti all day.
A fourth option is to raise taxes on stuff that generates negative spillovers for others. We consider raising “sin” taxes—on alcohol, gambling, the like—and on carbon (to $80/ton, the upper bound of the government’s accepted range). This allows us to cap a corporate tax increase to only 8 percent. Taken together, this “externalities” lever will raise $3.7 bn. Admittedly, sin taxes tend to be regressive (the poor pay more as a share of their incomes). But as Gerald Giam 严燕松 pointed out, such taxes reduce the harm from gambling and alcohol addiction.
In his response, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong rejected all these proposals, dismissing them as unrealistic or inconsistent with their philosophical beliefs. We obviously disagree.
He said that the corporate tax revenue estimate was unrealistic, citing a straw man of a hypothetical $70 bn figure that Chua Kheng Wee 蔡庆威 had put out, as a hyperbolic example. But our actual corporate tax lever yields much more credible numbers, consistent with our international obligations. He also rehashed the selfsame defense that land sales above 10 years should be treated as reserves, without addressing how our proposal extracts out the first 9 years of a lease into current revenue, which is already what the government does for leases below 10 years.
He failed to explain how our reserves lever, which only reduces the NIRC by 10 percent (and doesn’t draw down reserves at all), “steals “from future generations, any more than the PAP’s own proposal to change the NIR formula in 2008 and 2015. And he repeated a tired trope that wealth taxes cannot be credibly enforced, ignoring how we make very modest recovery assumptions that yield only $1.2 bn from this source, far lower than figures put out by other independent analysts.
Importantly, Minister Wong kept repeating that there was no other way to make ends meet, other than by hiking GST. As we showed, however, there are at least 4 levers we can pull, and pulling all four would cover the hole 4 times over. So rebut one component or even an entire lever, on the basis of principle or flawed assumptions. But the #workersparty is confident that the claim that there’s no other way is due to a lack of imagination or political courage, rather than genuine fiscal realities.

 

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Jamus met a cat.

Jamus Lim​

6 hrs ·
After several weeks doing estate walks at #Anchorvale, this week, #TeamSengkang returned to the few neighborhoods in #Compassvale that I’ve just taken over. The Northgate cluster is located right beside CompassOne mall, and actually predates it. Even so, we were pleased that it was well-maintained, and many of the residents we bumped into also shared that they had lived there from the start.
I also had the fortune to meet Hui Hui, a beautiful white cat, outside one of the residents’ homes. Interestingly enough, we learned of the kitty’s name not from the family, but from the Bangladeshi conservancy cleaner. It is these sort of bonds—between foreigners and locals, across ethnic distinctions and class divisions—that make Singapore the complex, interesting, and beautiful tapestry that it is. #SengkangGRC

 

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Jamus was part of a panel.

Jamus Lim​

11 hrs ·
A few Saturdays ago, I joined Yanuar Nugroho (Centre for Innovation Policy and Governance (CIPG)), Rahimah Abdulrahim (Meta Singapore), and Meaghan See (Eco-Business Singapore) on a panel organized under the rubric of the Indonesia-Singapore Foreign Policy Youth Talks. We had a candid and very wide-ranging discussion about our assessment of the future of the two countries in a challenging, post-pandemic world, and one where impending climate change cast a long and worrisome shadow.
Recent global developments are a reminder of the importance of deep diplomatic relations, developed at fora such as these. Thanks to the expert moderation by Thomas Noto Suoneto, as well as to participants, who posed many excellent and important (albeit difficult) questions, which pushed for answers to exactly how policy could contribute to managing rising inequality and the climate crisis. A writeup (in Bahasa Indonesia) is available here: https://www.kompas.com/.../pandemi-covid-19-perdalam...

 

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Jamus speaks about school starting time.

Jamus Lim​

1 hr ·

The Workers' Party​

1 hr ·
MP Jamus Lim spoke on later school start times at the Ministry of Education Committee of Supply 2022 debate in Parliament.
In his cut for the Ministry of Education, Jamus made the case for staggered school starts—starting at 8:00 am for upper primary and 8:30 am for secondary—and explained why neither the possibility that students will only sleep later, nor logistical concerns such as increased traffic during rush hour, should be impediments to later starts.
Video Credits: Mediacorp

 

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from msn.com:

Jamus Lim says he’s in favour of allowing cats in HDBs, but adds the government has ‘refused to budge’​

Workers’ Party Member of Parliament Jamus Lim shared a photo of a white cat he had come across during a recent estate walk at Compassvale.

He noted in a March 5 Facebook post that the neighbourhood he visited at Northgate cluster, beside CompassOne mall, is a “well-maintained” one, and he had gotten to talk to long-time residents there.

Compassvale was the ward of former WP MP Raeesah Khan, and after her resignation late last year, her duties were divided between Prof Lim, Ms He Ting Ru, and Mr Louis Chua.

One of the highlights of Asst Prof Lim’s Compassvale walk was meeting “Hui Hui, a beautiful white cat, outside one of the residents’ homes.”

© The Independent Singapore
He added that he learned of the cat’s name from the Bangladeshi conservancy cleaner in the area, adding that the workers,

I also had the fortune to meet Hui Hui, a beautiful white cat, outside one of the residents’ homes. Interestingly enough, we learned of the kitty’s name not from the family, but from the Bangladeshi conservancy cleaner.

“The cleaner—like most across the estate—was clearly embedded in the community. It is these sort of bonds—between foreigners and locals, across ethnic distinctions and class divisions—that make Singapore the complex, interesting, and beautiful tapestry that it is. #SengkangGRC,” he added.

Asst Prof Lim’s post drew a lot of attention from netizens, many of whom left encouraging and thankful comments on his wall.

However, one commenter asked him, “Pls campaign for cats to be allowed in HDB homes.”

© The Independent Singapore
The Sengkang GRC MP replied by crediting PAP MP Louis Ng (Nee Soon GRC), who has “extensively (and exhaustively) championed” the issue in Parliament.

Asst Prof Lim added that he himself is in favor of allowing cats in HDB flats, writing that he believes “that there are others in the House that agree, too.

The government, however, has thus far refused to budge.”

© The Independent Singapore
Indeed, Mr Louis Ng has been a longtime proponent of animal rights, having volunteered at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in his youth and then founding Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES) in 2001.


He announced in a Facebook post in December 2019 that he would be fighting for the right to keep cats in HDB flats.

“I do think it is time to review the rule of not allowing people living in HDB flats to keep cats. I’ve spoken up about this for many years and will raise this in Parliament. Let’s debate this.

I’ve filed the following Parliamentary Question for next month’s sitting: ‘To ask the Minister for National Development (a) what is the rationale for not allowing people living in HDB flats to keep cats; and (b) whether the Ministry is reviewing this rule.’”

In a written reply the following month, Mr Lawrence Wong, then-Minister for National Development, said that the government must “strike a balance between residents who are pet lovers and those who are not. Irresponsible pet ownership can lead to disamenities in the community and cause unhappiness.”

This has not deterred Mr Ng, however, as he has brought up the issue in Parliament several times since then.

 

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Jamus speaks on carbon offset system.

The Workers' Party​

12 hrs ·
MP Jamus Lim spoke on a carbon offset system that works.
In his cut for the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, Jamus spoke about how the existing system of carbon offsets is not achieving its intended goals. He then proposed a remedy whereby the government could partner with the private sector to form a trusted carbon credits exchange, seeded with liquidity from offsets purchased for travel by civil servants.
Video Credits: Mediacorp

 

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Jamus Lim​

9 hrs ·

The Workers' Party​

9 hrs ·
Happy International Women's Day! Here's what our MPs have said in Parliament about gender equality and our key manifesto points supporting women. #IWD2022

 

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