Pakistan, July 4 -- Another year, another broken promise. Once again, the government's grand talk of tightening the belt ends up squeezing everyone but itself. This time, the federal PSDP missed its own spending goal by a wide margin: Rs 905 billion spent, falling well short of the revised Rs 1.1 trillion target. A gap like this is a clear sign that whenever money runs out, it's the people's needs that get tossed aside while official perks stay safe.

Citizens hear the same excuse every year: there's no room in the budget for roads, schools, hospitals or jobs. Yet bloated ministries, idle departments and overlapping agencies continue to feed off the system. Lawmakers' pet schemes keep their funding intact, even grow bigger. Last year, the...