Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was right when he said, during his post-budget press conference, that in the past such financial exercises used to be stingy in the first two or three years of the legislature, and then followed by what become known as election budgets, as goodies are distributed in search of votes.

The budget for 2015, in some aspects, can fit in the description of being an election budget, although it is just the second in this Labour government's term.

It also fits in with what this Labour administration has been doing all along, and what after all the PL had promised before winning the 2013 election.

The main focus in Budget 2015 - similar to what has been Labour's strategy all the way since Joseph Muscat became its leader - is not the overall picture, what is known as the macro level of leading a country. On the other hand, the government has once again concentrated on the micro level. It does just enough to please individuals or groups of people, and this obscures their outlook on the how this will affect the national level.

This is good in the short term, as having a feel-good factor among the people is a priority for the government. It wants to keep the people happy. It gives them cuts in energy rates, it reduces fuel prices, it lowers maximum income tax rates (fulfilling a plan started by the PN), it offers a wide selection of social benefits, it gives tax credits on school transport use and it's giving grants to pensioners and low-income families.

But, in the long term, is the government looking far ahead enough? What we - or should I say, some people - are enjoying today might come back to haunt all of us in the future.

For one thing, the budget has given little assurances, if any, that the government is doing all it could to generate more employment (in the private sector), that it's planning projects aimed at stimulating the economy and, perhaps most importantly, how it will be financing the goodies it is dishing out, including, first and foremost, the reduction in electricity rates when the power station plant will not be ready within the two-year timeframe the government had set itself.

On the latter, one expected more details on how the government plans to deliver, but perhaps it was too ashamed to speak of its greatest failure with all of Malta watching. Not much was said about the environment too, which does not seem to be a priority for this administration. And what stood out also was Dr Muscat's discomfiture in replying to a question by this newspaper on public transport - again, this was an issue which gained Labour many votes in 2013, but the way it is handling the issue does not offer confidence that we will have a system that will work.

When it comes to health and education, the government is boasting about projects that were started by the previous administration (the oncology centre and the schools that are being built) but there were no fresh ideas for what are two columns of our society.

There is also one main contradiction in the budget, and this concerns social services. On the one hand, we have a government that says it is fully determined to cut abuse in the system, and in this it will find full support from all quarters (except from those who are guilty). But, on the other hand, it is creating opportunities for more abuse, as the initiatives that have been announced concerning low-wage earners and single mothers have too many loopholes in them not to be tempting.

On another level, although the budget is based on what the government says is awarding hard work, the freebies that are envisaged to assist people in the lower parts of society will do little to entice them to work harder. The line of reasoning of these people will be: If the taxpayers are working for us and giving us benefits while we sit at home doing nothing, why should we work to earn more or less the same amount?