Senator Tears Into 2570 Budget as Reckless Spending Plan

On September 11, the Senate convened to consider the 2570 fiscal budget bill, with Deputy Senate President Kriengsak Sriraksa chairing. Senator Nantana Nantavarophas criticized the budget as "luck-dependent," nicknaming it after the prime minister while calling it the "Godchild Budget" because the Digital Economy and Society Ministry received a 33 percent increase. She flagged five major problems: (1) the Digital Ministry's flagship TH-AI Passport project, budgeted at 1.6 billion baht, failed before launch, with demand miscalculated from 5 million accounts down to only 1.5 million; (2) recurring expenditures account for 73.6 percent of the budget—some 2.7 trillion baht—with wages and salaries exceeding 800 billion baht or 22 percent annually, a figure that rises every year; (3) the 700-billion-baht central fund, representing 8.3 percent of the budget, has no clear purpose and allows the government a blank check; (4) 788-billion-baht in borrowed funds fail to stimulate the economy when public debt already stands near 70 percent of GDP and household debt reaches 88 percent; (5) nearly 800 billion baht in investment projects lack clear key performance indicators, and past budgets have never been cut for underperformance. Nantana urged the Senate not to use future debt to pay for wasteful spending, warning that ordinary people must fend for themselves because the government is betting its entire future on artificial intelligence without proven results.