I thought they were running the Robin Hood Strategy for years. Robbing the poor to give to themselves.
Mr Tharman said: "We have got to be careful that we don't think we are Robin Hood, where you can simply take money from the rich and give it to someone else. It's in everyone's interest - especially the poor and the middle-class - that we have an economy where jobs are always available and wages can go up. That can happen if we are competitive, and we have entrepreneurs, we have professionals, we have everyone here in world-class teams - that's in everyone's interest.
"Robin Hood makes a good newspaper commentary, but that's not our strategy. We need to spend more over the next five years in the common interest.
"We need to have the Silver Support Scheme, we need to strengthen some of our social provisions, that's part of it and I think it is fair that those that are better off pay for it, but most of what we do is in the common interest, not of one particular group alone. If you talk about our transport infrastructure, if you talk about our hospitals, if you talk about some of our new economic infrastructure like T5 at Changi, everyone will benefit from it either because of jobs or because of cohesion.
"To have a cohesive society you need public good that everyone shares in, and someone has to pay for it. We all pay for it: Most people pay for it by GST, those who are better off also pay for it through the property taxes which are higher than others and also income tax. So everyone pays for this common good that we are all benefiting from, but the rich pay more, and the poor get some benefits out of the system, and that's fair."
Mr Tharman said: "We have got to be careful that we don't think we are Robin Hood, where you can simply take money from the rich and give it to someone else. It's in everyone's interest - especially the poor and the middle-class - that we have an economy where jobs are always available and wages can go up. That can happen if we are competitive, and we have entrepreneurs, we have professionals, we have everyone here in world-class teams - that's in everyone's interest.
"Robin Hood makes a good newspaper commentary, but that's not our strategy. We need to spend more over the next five years in the common interest.
"We need to have the Silver Support Scheme, we need to strengthen some of our social provisions, that's part of it and I think it is fair that those that are better off pay for it, but most of what we do is in the common interest, not of one particular group alone. If you talk about our transport infrastructure, if you talk about our hospitals, if you talk about some of our new economic infrastructure like T5 at Changi, everyone will benefit from it either because of jobs or because of cohesion.
"To have a cohesive society you need public good that everyone shares in, and someone has to pay for it. We all pay for it: Most people pay for it by GST, those who are better off also pay for it through the property taxes which are higher than others and also income tax. So everyone pays for this common good that we are all benefiting from, but the rich pay more, and the poor get some benefits out of the system, and that's fair."
