Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential nominee Ma Ying-jeou (
If Ma had taken any other course, he would have had to pay the price in next year's presidential election for the foolish actions of pan-blue legislators.
The KMT finally appears to understand the obligations that political parties and legislators have and is now willing to first examine the budget bill instead of linking it to passage of the commission bill.
The budget bill affects every national construction project, and is important to taxpayers' wallets. Therefore, examining the budget bill is one of the most critical functions of a legislature. The commission bill, in contrast, deals with whether the rules of the political game are fair.
For more than six months the pan-blue camp has mistakenly tried to link the two. Recognizing this error was long overdue.
According to Article 51 of the Budget Act (
The KMT thought it was clever to use its legislative majority to hold the budget plan hostage to force the legislature to review the commission bill. The Democratic Progressive Party, however, is also guilty of paralyzing the legislature to prevent a review of the bill.
If the legislative deadlock is not resolved before the end of this legislative session on Friday -- and if no extraordinary session is held to pass the bill -- then next fall lawmakers will be faced with having to review and pass both the 2007 budget and the 2008 budget. This would put both the government and the legislature in an untenable situation.
The 2007 budget bill has been stuck in the legislature for more than 190 days, delaying national infrastructure projects and tarnishing the national image. It is time to end the farce. The opposition should unconditionally review and pass the budget bill.
There are no winners or losers here. The longer the deadlock, the greater the losses on all sides. The deadlock has resulted in increasing public criticism, and the opposition camp must take the majority of the blame for this. Ma should not be seeking to claim credit for resolving a situation that he previously said he had no control over.
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump continued to shake the foundations of the liberal international order to realize his “America first” policy. However, amid an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability, the Trump administration brought some clarity to its policy toward Taiwan. As expected, bilateral trade emerged as a major priority for the new Trump administration. To secure a favorable trade deal with Taiwan, it adopted a two-pronged strategy: First, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” chip business from the US, indicating that if Taipei did not address Washington’s concerns in this strategic sector, it could revisit its Taiwan
The stocks of rare earth companies soared on Monday following news that the Trump administration had taken a 10 percent stake in Oklahoma mining and magnet company USA Rare Earth Inc. Such is the visible benefit enjoyed by the growing number of firms that count Uncle Sam as a shareholder. Yet recent events surrounding perhaps what is the most well-known state-picked champion, Intel Corp, exposed a major unseen cost of the federal government’s unprecedented intervention in private business: the distortion of capital markets that have underpinned US growth and innovation since its founding. Prior to Intel’s Jan. 22 call with analysts
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) challenges and ignores the international rules-based order by violating Taiwanese airspace using a high-flying drone: This incident is a multi-layered challenge, including a lawfare challenge against the First Island Chain, the US, and the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defines lawfare as “controlling the enemy through the law or using the law to constrain the enemy.” Chen Yu-cheng (陳育正), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, at Taiwan’s Fu Hsing Kang College (National Defense University), argues the PLA uses lawfare to create a precedent and a new de facto legal
Chile has elected a new government that has the opportunity to take a fresh look at some key aspects of foreign economic policy, mainly a greater focus on Asia, including Taiwan. Still, in the great scheme of things, Chile is a small nation in Latin America, compared with giants such as Brazil and Mexico, or other major markets such as Colombia and Argentina. So why should Taiwan pay much attention to the new administration? Because the victory of Chilean president-elect Jose Antonio Kast, a right-of-center politician, can be seen as confirming that the continent is undergoing one of its periodic political shifts,
RSS