Child benefit funding
During the second televised presentation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential primary candidates’ national policy outlooks, one of the contenders, former Hon Hai Precision chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), proposed that the state pay for the upkeep of all children up to six years old. This proposal does indeed touch upon the problem of Taiwan’s falling birthrate, which is becoming a question of national security, but can a policy proposal that involves throwing money at the problem really be a vote-winner?
About 200,000 babies are born in Taiwan each year, and there is a cumulative total of about 1.4 million children between the ages of naught and six. The difference between the monthly fees of government-run daycare centers and kindergartens on the one hand and private ones on the other is at least NT$10,000 (US$321).
Running kindergartens costs the government about NT$20,000 per child per month, so if the state were to pay for everything, including living and school expenses, and if the total is NT$30,000 per month for each child, then the total annual budget would be NT$30,000 multiplied by 1.4 million children multiplied by 12 months, which comes to a grand total of NT$504 billion.
No wonder that a councilor raised doubts, saying: “The central government’s total annual budget is only NT$1 trillion, so where does Terry Gou think this money is going to come from?”
Even Gou’s KMT rival, [former New Taipei City mayor] Eric Chu (朱立倫), when replying to reporters’ questions, slapped down Gou’s proposal by saying that if the public is not willing to pay high taxes, to suggest that the state should pay for every child’s upkeep is really not possible.
Every prospective candidate has the right to put forward policy proposals, but the main point is whether they are actually achievable.
I could upstage Gou’s proposal by suggesting that the government should subsidize children’s living and learning expenses until they graduate from elementary school, but the question is how the budget for annual revenue and expenditure is going to be drawn up and whether you are going to raise tax rates.
Which is more important: national construction or welfare policies? Without national economic construction, the whole national economy will suffer. In that case, would people want to have children?
Clearly, the proposal for the government to pay for the upkeep of every child from zero to six years old is not achievable under existing conditions.
Lin Chia-ying
Taichung
Child subsidy budget
Former Hon Hai Precision Industry chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), one of the contenders in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential primary election, says he wants the state to pay for the upkeep of children from when they are born up to the age of six.
Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) responded by saying that policy proposals cannot be made in an impromptu fashion like promising at a shareholders’ meeting that your company’s share price will reach NT$200.
Chang said that national policies must be based on rigorous planning, including financial planning, and you have to be accountable to the public. If you fail to fulfill your promises, you cannot just resign and be done with it.
Indeed — where would the money come from? Even Gou’s KMT colleague, [former New Taipei City mayor] Eric Chu (朱立倫) says that, based on Taiwan’s existing taxation standards and its current financial situation, it would not be easy in the short term for the government to pay for the upkeep of every child from birth to six years old.
A more realistic approach would be to employ various kinds of public-private cooperation to create a family-friendly environment, especially for working parents, so as to lighten the burden of childcare.
Besides, Gou’s idea is not a new one. Two years ago, former acting minister of health and welfare Lin Tzou-yien (林奏延) repeatedly called for state support for children under six years old.
He said that Taiwan’s falling birthrate was an even more important problem than that of long-term care, because if the birthrate kept falling there would eventually be no one available to do the job of caring, never mind implementing a long-term care policy.
He called on the government to hurry up and introduce benefits to encourage population stability.
He suggested coordinating between the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare to provide social welfare benefits such as social housing, milk powder coupons and vaccination coupons so that young people would dare to get married and have children.
At the time, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) responded by saying: “Former minister Lin’s proposal is a concept, and we think it is heading in the right direction, but from a financial point of view it is not achievable.”
Judging by the reactions we have seen over the last few days, it looks as though Gou is making all sorts of promises with an eye to the KMT’s impending primary opinion poll, regardless of whether they are achievable or not.
Chang Jui-peng
New Taipei City
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