The Executive Yuan is considering issuing a request to the legislature to rethink the proposed budget cuts and to freeze 50 percent of subsidies to local governments, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told a press conference today.
The legislature has proposed to slash 6.6 percent of the government’s total budget, which is equivalent to NT$207.6 billion (US$6.33 billion), six times the average budget cut from the past three years, Cho said citing media reports.
Cho compared the proposed budget cuts to a “suicidal attempt” and said the government could not do that when facing “indiscriminate attacks.”
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
Cho would not directly say whether he would send the budget back to lawmakers for them to reconsider, saying only that he would seek "administrative remedies" allowed by the constitution.
The Executive Yuan has the right and obligation due to Article 3 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution to request the legislature to reconsider any bill it finds difficult to execute, he said.
Taiwan saw its economy grow by 4.27 percent last year, the second-highest in recent years, Cho said, adding that the government should enable people to live a better life, boost industrial development and strengthen the country’s sovereignty.
The NT$280.6-billion increase in budget planning is to be used in areas including public infrastructure, national defense, national health insurance, social housing, technology development projects, general subsidies and pension, Cho said, saying that the opposition ignored this despite being informed several times.
There is nothing wrong with increasing local government budget planning to serve people’s needs, Cho said, but it is regrettable that the opposition does not allow the central government to increase its budget.
To protect the Executive Yuan, Cho said he has asked Executive Yuan Secretary-General Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) and Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) to collate all the subsidized projects and budgets that were approved last year and to review them once again after the Lunar New Year.
As long as it does not involve social welfare policies that affect underprivileged groups, 50 percent of the subsidies to local governments would be frozen, he said.
In response, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) today published a series of social media posts accusing the Democratic Progressive Party of spreading rumors and overseeing wasteful spending, and disputed government numbers about the budget.
"As the people's hard-earned taxpayers' money has fallen into the pockets of fat cats, the opposition party naturally cannot just sit back and watch, and it must strictly monitor the situation," it said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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