Social media users gave the Budget a mixed score card yesterday. Though some debated the measures, others engaged in partisan bickering. The evening was given some much needed comic relief through memes and satirical comments.

As was to be expected, the measures affecting people’s pockets were the most talked about on Facebook and Twitter.

The cost of living adjustment increase of €1.75 was described as “insulting” by Facebook user Steve Tonna. The comment prompted dozens of comments and about 300 likes, including one gif (a graphic comment) of a homeless woman walking away from Castille with a bag full of money.

Finance Minister Edward Scicluna had a few slips during his two-and-a-half-hour-long speech, among them when he announced new measures for those diagnosed with celiac disease. Prof. Scicluna called the condition colac disease and memes of him in a white lab coat discovering the disease were soon to follow. One such meme was captioned: “Cola disease. It comes from the terrible COLA increase I was given”.

The government is set to rake in €750,000 from excise tax on chewing gum, a measure which really stuck on social media.

A meme by the Nationalist Party’s youth organisation, MZPN, poking fun at the Budget starting some 25 minutes late yesterday, blaming traffic jams for it.

The Sunday Times of Malta columnist Mark Anthony Falzon shared a photo of a man blowing a giant bubble gum bubble and wrote: “The cornerstone of a healthy economy.”

The Nationalist Party’s youth organisation shared a few memes, among them a sarcastic dig at the government’s 6c increase in students’ stipends. The meme was a large banana with the caption: “Enough to buy one banana a week.”