Legislature passes job-creation bills

On the last day of the legislative session, lawmakers yesterday avoided a showdown over two job-creation bills after caucuses agreed to postpone the public construction expansion program until the next session without insisting on the debt limits for its funding.

The body approved the job-creation project and other less disputed bills at 10:15pm, with Legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) expected to end the session at midnight.

As of press time, lawmakers were still reviewing bills with a view to passing them before the end of the session.

The Cabinet, eager to dole out aid for the jobless before the Lunar New Year, plans to go ahead and implement the job-creation program with unemployment funds, according to outgoing DPP legislative whip Wang Tuoh (王拓).

Earlier in the day, major legislative caucuses held more talks in a last-ditch attempt to resolve differences over various issues, notably the two bills intended to provide 115,000 one-year job opportunities at a price of NT$70 billion.

The question of how to fund the provisional measures had been the main issue of dispute between the Cabinet and opposition parties.

A consensus became possible only after the ruling camp bowed to the opposition demand that both projects be paid for with supplementary budgets, to be requested later this year.

In return, the opposition parties agreed to exempt NT$50 billion for the pubic construction expansion program from the legal limits on the amount of money the government can borrow.

"Seeking to pay for the project, the government should request additional budgets," the cross-party accord states. "In the process of doing so, it may borrow money -- beyond the constraints of public debt rules, if necessary."

The exemption does not apply to the NT$20 billion job bill designed to generate 75,000 jobs for unemployed people aged between 35 and 65 to do environmental beautification and community service.

To speed up the legislative review, the Cabinet earlier acquiesced to seek this funding through regular budgetary procedures.

All caucuses promised to take up the budget requests immediately after they return from the winter break. Premier Yu Shyi-kun has been invited to brief the legislature on Feb. 27 and take questions from lawmakers on how he intends to use the extra money at issue.

KMT Legislator Lee Chuan-chia (李全教) said his caucus would cease its boycotts "now that the Cabinet has agreed to come up with a detailed plan about how it will execute the two programs."

Both the KMT and PFP legislative caucuses have frowned on the two job bills, saying they offer no real solution to lift the economy or combat unemployment.

PFP lawmaker Thomas Lee (李桐豪) staged a brief sit-in in front of the legislative chamber yesterday morning to protest what he called the Cabinet's attempt to trample on the legislature.

Lee, also a finance professor, said nothing will have changed when the two measures expire at the end of this year.

"But the legislature dares not strike down the bills that were roughly formulated and seek in effect to provide some unemployed people with financial aid on borrowed tax dollars," he said.

Policymakers disagreed, saying workers can find other jobs once the government pulls the economy out of the doldrums. Together, the two projects aim to expand the economic growth by 0.38 percent and bring the unemployment rate down to 4.5 percent this year.