Print

Mail

wiki links

Letters:

Where is the vision?

Helen Keller once said, "the most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision."

With the presidential election approaching in less than a year, the government has continued the tradition of indiscriminate distribution of perks and handouts to special interest groups.

When you look around the country, every group is asking for handouts. Fishermen and farmers cooperatives ask for assistance in resolving their bad loans. Teachers ask for compensation for their maternity leave if taken during paid summer vacation. Railroad workers ask for guarantees not to incorporate Taiwan Railway Administration despite losing billions every year.

Inevitably in the election season, the government will quickly show them the money. But where is the vision? Where does the government see Taiwan 10 years from now?

The Taiwanese can simply look across the Pacific Ocean at California for a lesson from history. As the fifth largest economy in the world, the Golden State has plunged itself into the abyss of financial ruin by unrestrained government spending leading to a US$38 billion budget deficit.

During the tech boom in the 1990s, instead of spending the surplus on one-time projects or giving the money back to the taxpayers, the state government went on a spending frenzy and a hiring binge out of proportion to population growth. As a result, one in six Californians are now state employees and the budget has ballooned to more than US$100 billion a year.

Similarly, Taiwan has also experienced a tech bust along with the worse economic downturn and unemployment crisis in her 50 years of existence. Taiwanese government debt now stands at more than NT$10 trillion.

Yet, the government is handing out money like there is no tomorrow. The US can afford deficit spending because the tab is often picked up by foreigners who pump the money back to the US economy in the form of investment.

For example, the Saudi royal family is estimated to have more than US$1 trillion invested in the US stock market, real estate and banks. US Treasury bonds are purchased by governments around the world, including Japan, Taiwan and even China. The US government could simply sit back and print money.

On the other hand, no one is picking up Taiwan's government's tab other than the Taiwanese ourselves. The tsunamic national debt will eventually have to be paid off by future generations. In other words, we are eating our children's lunch.

Most of the recent polls show that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the DDP are trailing the pan-blue camp by 10 percent in the upcoming presidential election.

However, most of the polls also show that 20 percent of voters are still undecided. Many of the undecided voters are probably like me, very disappointed at how the government is handling its finances but don't wish to revert to KMT/PFP rule, with the stench of white terror, black gold and martial law still fresh in our minds.

If Chen and the DDP are serious about winning the re-election, the first step is to say "no" to the special-interest groups and to show us their vision for the future.

Kenny Liu
Hualien
This story has been viewed 1429 times.