Cabinet squabbles with opposition on plan to kill five bills

After the Executive Yuan expressed its opposition to five budget bills currently pending in the legislature, Lin Chuan (林全), head of the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, yesterday sought the DPP legislative caucus's support to sink the bills.

"In addition to the government's financial difficulties, another reason we want to shelve these bills is that [the legislature] needs to carefully review how fair they are," Lin told DPP legislators yesterday, urging the party to launch inter-party negotiations soon to promote the Cabinet's goal.

Lin last Saturday branded the five legislator-initiated bills as "money pits" that would cost the government an extra NT$5 trillion, which he said would seriously drain the government's coffers if passed.

Lin yesterday took one of the bills, which offers pensions to veterans of China's shelling of Kinmen on Aug. 23, 1958 (八二三戰役官兵晚年生活照顧特別條例), as an example. He said that most soldiers, who fought in the battle voluntarily, had been well paid at the time since they were not career soldiers. He said that if the bill were passed, it would set a controversial precedent for other soldiers to ask for pensions in their old age.

DPP legislative whip Chou Po-lun (周伯倫) criticized Lin on Sunday for adopting what he said was an inappropriate strategy by bringing the issue up with the media, thereby complicating and holding back the secret negotiations that had already been going on for quite some time.

In response, Lin said yesterday that he had fully exchanged views with the DPP caucus and worked out a solution.

Though the ruling DPP supported the Cabinet's goal of sinking the bills, other parties lashed out at Lin's move.

KMT legislative whip Cheng Yung-chin (鄭永金) said the government simply has to pay what it owes people, while People First Party Legislator Shen Chin-hwei (沈智慧) said that Lin should have communicated with the legislature before he accused legislators of passing bills for interest groups in order to benefit incumbents.

Shen added that Lin has not even spoken to the party about the Cabinet's concerns, but instead has triggered a standoff between the legislature and the executive branch.

In a Saturday interview with the China Times, Lin said that the five bills amounted to "pork-barrel politics" because they were aimed at benefitting constituents of legislators who face elections at the end of the year.

New Party Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) also said that the Cabinet had shifted the blame to opposition parties by accusing them of taking the initiative in passing the bills. But he added that the DPP government itself had proposed a lot of costly bills.

The four other bills are proposals to provide pensions to government employees who retired after 1970 (at a cost of at least NT$1 trillion), to dredge the Keelung River (NT$500 billion), compensate landlords whose land was appropriated for roads (NT$3.4 trillion) and to establish an anti-cancer program which will require NT$2 billion annually.