Sir: The federal budget, like those presented over past two decades, is the perfect recipe for decreasing investment in employment generating industrial growth, an ever-widening gap between revenues generated and liabilities to a level that technically this country is drifting to insolvency. While presenting the federal budget in the National Assembly, our finance minister talked about the model of Medina Welfare State (MWS). What he forgot was that in MWS concept the requirement for public office including the head of state was unquestioned integrity, no conflicts of interest, transparency and strict accountability and auditing of every rupee spent from national exchequer. Rulers and public office holders in MWS never indulged in affluence on state expense and priority was always the welfare of most deprived sections of society. The ever rising debt to GDP ratio and deficit between revenues generated from direct taxation on income vis-à-vis expenditures along with poor fiscal management pose the biggest threat to state sovereignty. Unchecked corruption, abuse of power and lack of accountability serve as fuel to drive the engine of terrorism and extremism in a country where the state has no priority to invest in education, health and even provide essential items like clean drinking water to a vast majority of the population. Almost 90 percent of indirect taxes are raised on consumption of consumer items, utilities, banking transactions and only 10 percent of income. Uniform levy of indirect taxation from the poorest to the richest has lead to high inflation. In such an environment, it is but natural for traders and business people to shut down their industries and instead invest in real estate and construction of shopping malls, plazas and land development schemes where profits are phenomenal, and taxes levied on sale are calculated at less than 10 percent of market value. The conflicts of interest of a powerful segment of paid civil and uniformed bureaucracy who are beneficiaries of multiple allotments of prime real estate and the nexus between the political elite and land mafia of this country are the biggest impediment to our economic revival. ALI MALIK TARIQ Lahore