Due to opposition from the pan-blue alliance, the special arms procurement bill failed to pass the legislature's Procedure Committee yesterday, the first attempt after the government adjusted the budget ceiling downward to NT$480 billion.
Also failing to pass the committee were five bills proposed by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislative caucus.
They are the anti-invasion peace bill (
TSU caucus whip Lo Chih-ming (
However, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus asked him to drop the proposal, taking into consideration the numerical disadvantage of the pan-green camp, Lo said.
People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lee Yung-ping (
"The referendum held in tandem with the presidential election last year vetoed the question that the nation should beef up its missile defense in the face of Chinese ballistic missile deployments," she said. "While the DPP government should have respected the decision of the people, it has apparently turned a deaf ear to it."
Lee said that her caucus has never opposed the arms procurement plan. What they oppose instead is an arms budget that is outrageously costly and earmarked as a special budget to circumvent the Budget Law (
Although the cost of the arms budget stipulated in the bill had been adjusted downward, Lee said that the budget is still designated as "special" and the price of the weapons systems is still disgracefully expensive.
"It is nothing but old wine stored in a new bottle," she said.
Echoing Lee's opinion, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Chen Chieh (
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Lai Ching-teh (
"While the duty of the Procedure Committee is to set the agenda for the plenary session, it has instead usurped the job of the legislative committees to debate a bill," Lai said.
Meanwhile, cross-party negotiations conducted to discuss the formation of a second investigation committee of the election-eve assassination attempt and a second legislative resolution to counter China's "Anti-Secession" Law fell flat yesterday.
The DPP caucus argued that the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee Statute (
The KMT caucus, however, said that the establishment of the committee can be concurrent with legal revisions.
While the pan-blue camp is willing to revamp the disputed articles, KMT Legislator Tseng Yung-chuan (
DPP caucus whip Chao Yung-ching (
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