Sir: The Punjab provincial budget for this year was full of subsidies and concessions that betray how the government is still working to reward its own rather than genuine thinking about the uplift of the people, particularly the poor. The first priority for the provincial governments should be education and health because that is the way to combat illiteracy and poverty. Even their supposedly business-friendly policies are in fact aimed at easing the movement of large capital sums rather than facilitating small businesses and services, which are the life-blood of the economy. Increased taxation of the middle and working classes through indirect taxation strangles the economy and creates the conditions for greater poverty. Not taxing agriculture and large landholdings is obviously a way to keep the Punjabi feudal elite on the government’s side rather than benefit the poor. Increasing revenues requires administrative reform, not tinkering with taxes and raising nominal amounts by taxing the poor. When will democratic governments learn that ultimately the elite is fickle and vapid and will turn on them as soon as look at them. The people are the true source of a government’s strength and if the people are weak, so is the government SHAHBAZ CHAUDHRY Lahore