In light of the nation’s deteriorating finances, with mounting national debts and low tax revenues, one would think the government would be more prudent in spending taxpayers’ money.
Hearing President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) lecture his officials to handle the government’s finances more efficiently and seek solutions to the nation’s financial problems, many thought the central government would lead by example.
Regrettably, recent incidents suggest otherwise. Instead of being thriftier, it appears the Ma administration can be quite a spendthrift when it comes to dispensing taxpayers’ hard-earned money while lining the pockets of its own officials and that of the big conglomerates.
For example, on Thursday last week, at the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) board meeting, aside from confirming the appointment of Lin Join-sane (林中森) as the new SEF chairman, it also amended its organizational regulations to change the position from one without remuneration to one paying nearly NT$300,000 (US$10,235) a month.
Similarly, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) announced on Friday that his ministry was planning to launch a NT$1 billion subsidy program to encourage domestic consumers to buy LED bulbs. Shih said the ministry was considering offering about NT$200 for the purchase of each LED bulb.
Granted, the ministry may have the good intention of making the products more affordable and promoting environmental awareness, but taking into account the recent wrangling over the issue of the minimum wage — after a raise in the minimum wage that would have given people just enough money to buy an additional tea egg each day was rejected — many can’t help but be disheartened and question whether the LED subsidy program is just another way for the government to profit the big conglomerates.
As for changing the job of SEF chairman to a paid position, how much more brazen can the Ma government get?
The SEF said the change was made in response to the “new cross-strait situation.” The question this assertion raises is: Exactly what “new situation” is the SEF talking about?
In case the Ma government needs a reminder: The nation’s debt has ballooned from about NT$1.2 trillion when the Democratic Progressive Party government left office in 2008 to nearly NT$5 trillion four years later.
Data from the National Treasury Agency showed that the per capita national debt was NT$216,000 and that, as of the end of July, the central government was carrying a long-term — more than one year — debt of NT$4.8745 trillion, to be exact.
“It is important for us to be thriftier. Finding ways to generate more revenue is crucial, too,” Ma said as recently as July at the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) weekly Central Standing Committee meeting, during which Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) was invited to report on the state of the nation’s finances.
However, observing the action of his government, it appears Ma cannot practice what he preaches and cannot empathize at all with what people are enduring.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs