Efficiency or Neglect? Cutting Education and Health Budgets as a Betrayal of the Constitution

Wahyu Hidayat

Contributor

19 Feb 2025 · 08:12 19 February 2025 08:12 WIB 5 minutes reading time: 5 minutes 1 read

This paper criticizes the policy of cutting education and health budgets which is contrary to Articles 31 and 34 of the 1945 Constitution. This policy im

Efficiency or Neglect? Cutting Education and Health Budgets as a Betrayal of the Constitution

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Table of Contents

Efficiency Policies That Contradict the Constitution
Impact of Budget Cuts: The State Fails to Protect Its Citizens
1. Deteriorating Education, Dark Future
2. Health Sacrificed, People Suffer
3. Teachers and Medical Personnel: Pillars of the Nation That Are Sidelined
Manipulation of the Efficiency Narrative: The State Chooses Other Interests Over the Rights of the People
Conclusion: The State Is Failing, and the People Are Bearing the Consequences

Section 3/3: Manipulation of the Efficiency Narrative: The State Chooses Other Interests Over…

Manipulation of the Efficiency Narrative: The State Chooses Other Interests Over the Rights of the People

What is more painful is that these cuts in education and health budgets occur when the budget for flagship projects, official expenses, and bureaucratic spending continues to increase. When the state sacrifices the basic rights of the people under the guise of efficiency, but on the other hand still allocates large funds for other interests that do not directly touch the people, then this is no longer a technical budget problem—this is a betrayal of the constitution.

If efficiency is really needed, why are the education and health sectors being cut? Why not the budget for bureaucracy which is often ineffective? Why not the budget for projects that are more symbolic than functional? This policy is not about efficiency, but about the state's failure to determine priorities.

Conclusion: The State Is Failing, and the People Are Bearing the Consequences

Cutting education and health budgets is not just a wrong policy, but real evidence that the state has failed to carry out the mandate of the constitution. The state, which should educate the nation, instead allows its people to remain in ignorance. The state, which should care for the poor, is increasingly limiting their access to decent health services.

If the government continues to argue that these cuts are being made for fiscal sustainability, then we must ask: sustainability for whom? If efficiency is done by sacrificing the basic rights of the people, then it is not efficiency, but a systematic neglect of the rights of the people.

A developed nation is one that places education and health as top priorities, not as a burden on the budget that can be sacrificed. If the government truly wants to build the nation's future, then there is no other way than to allocate a decent budget for these two sectors. If not, then the government has not only failed, but has also betrayed the mandate of the constitution and the ideals of the nation's founders.