Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday promised full support for 65 bills and the central government’s fiscal budget for next year as proposed by the Executive Yuan.
During a visit by Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) and Cabinet Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan (薛香川) to the legislature, Wang said all of the Cabinet’s proposals were of equal importance.
However, he urged the Executive Yuan to propose an order of priority for the bills and pledged to help the proposals clear the legislative floor.
“The budget requests we have proposed for this legislative session are in line with our new policies,” Liu said.
CLOSER LOOK
Six of the bills proposed by the Cabinet aim to help economically disadvantaged families, while seven of the proposals address energy and environmental issues, Liu said.
A total of 41 bills are related to improving the nation’s competitiveness and six are related to safeguarding human rights, he said.
Liu also told Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世), who was present during the officials’ visit, that he hoped the KMT caucus would unfreeze NT$36.6 billion (US$1.1 billion) in budget requests for the current fiscal year.
CAUCUS PRIORITIES
Lin said the caucus still needed to discuss the priority of the Cabinet’s bills at a meeting today, adding that the caucus might put as many as 50 proposals on its priority list.
The legislature’s fall session begins tomorrow.
It is customary for the legislature to spend most of the session reviewing annual government budget requests as the Budget Law (預算法) stipulates that the central government’s fiscal budget requests must be passed at least one month before the end of the fiscal year.
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