Reform of the preferential interest rates for retired public servants was announced to great fanfare, despite the paltry gains involved. Every year, NT$70 billion (US$2.4 billion) is spent subsidizing interest payments. These reforms will save perhaps NT$2 billion to NT$3 billion, and will neither help the government dig itself out of the financial hole it is in, nor calm public anger.
Monthly pension payments for this privileged group, coupled with the preferential interest rate, mean that these pensions are worth between 75 percent and 95 percent of public servants’ original salary. If the pension is 85 percent of the salary, a person previously earning NT$70,000 a month would then be due a pension of almost NT$60,000 a month. Tax on this is minimal, as no tax is payable on the first NT$65,000 anyway, and then there are various exemptions. If active civil servants get a raise, retired ones get a raise on their pension, while subsidies — costing the government NT$10 billion every year — are handed out to those supporting children in school.
Compare this with the average worker’s NT$12,000 monthly pension from the new system, which amounts to 17 percent of the salary of our civil servant above. Even if a worker contributes the maximum amount of insurance — NT$43,900 a year for a total of 40 years — they would still only get NT$20,000 a month. Under the old system, some workers can also receive a retirement package of up to 45 months’ salary, paid by the employer. With an original salary of NT$50,000, that would mean a one-off payment of NT$2.25 million. Spread over 20 years this is not even 20 percent of the original salary. Factor in the monthly pension payments of the average worker and this still only adds up to less than 40 percent of a civil servant’s salary. Furthermore, the majority of businesses in Taiwan are SMEs, which have a life span of about 10 years. Only around 10 percent of workers even receive a retirement payout from their company anyway.
Is it fair that there is so much disparity in the pension systems for public servants and the rest of us? That sound you are hearing is the death rattle of the principle of trust.
The government’s principle of wealth allocation really only applies to about 100 retired government officials, which will save about NT$30 million. Twenty percent of the 400,000 accounts with the preferential rate have savings of NT$2 million or more. That is NT$30,000 in interest every month. It seems likely anyone that has that much in savings would have been a mid to high-ranking official, already on a high salary. If these people were included in the principle, the government would save the taxpayer NT$30 billion a year.
How ironic it is that the very thing that most harms Taiwan in international competitiveness ratings is the lack of administrative efficiency, while the strength of its SMEs is singled out as one of its strongest competitive edges. Those criticized for inefficiency are given an iron rice bowl, while those praised for their industry are not only paid less, but shoulder the greater tax burden to support the former group of supposedly “special” people. No wonder the public is up in arms. Nobody really paid it much mind in the past, when Taiwan’s economy was booming, but now that salaries have stagnated, and in some cases are falling, patience is wearing thin. Even Examination Yuan President John Kuan (關中) conceded there were failings in the career-based system of civil service in a report submitted after a visit to three northern European countries last year. These failings included the emphasis on fairness over flexibility, the lack of skills testing, poor work/life balance and salaries based on seniority, not performance.
Given the failings of the system, the lack of efficiency and the disproportionately favorable welfare, it’s no wonder public servants have found themselves in the public’s crosshairs.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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