Every year’s budget statement presents the government’s current priorities in a nutshell.Before Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam announces Singapore’s next budget on Feb 21, a look at budget speeches over the past 10 years places today’s policies in historical perspective, and serves as a reminder of how we got to where we are today.Select a year in the side panel to see a word cloud analysis generated from that year’s budget speech. The word clouds show, at a glance, how often a word was mentioned in that year’s speech. The larger the font size, the more often the word was uttered. The Business Times performed an initial filter to weed out largely insignificant, commonly used words and to limit the word clouds to the 40 most repeated words from each speech. Hover your mouse cursor over the words in blue to read actual quotes from the speeches. Those quotes, as well as summaries of the years’ budgets, provide additional context.

Kenneth Lim (reporting) and Deborah Mak (graphics)