The tradition of the annual budget speech is rapidly becoming meaningless. Every year, the finance minister delivers a barely audible speech while the opposition raises a ruckus, tearing up copies of the budget book and complaining about everything and nothing at once.

Of course, the noise would be a shame if the finance minister were actually saying something new. This is not to suggest that there isn’t any new information in the federal budget. For 2025-26, the total outlay stands at Rs 17.53 trillion, a nearly 7% decline from last year. This contraction is accompanied by efforts to control spending, with a reduction of 5.33%, bringing expenditures to Rs 16.28 trillion. For the first time in years, debt servicing as a percentage of expenditures has decreased by 16%, amounting to Rs 8.027 trillion, though it remains the government’s largest liability. Defence expenditure has seen a hefty 20.2% increase, with Rs 2.55 trillion allocated to defence. Despite the reduction in overall expenditure, the........

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