With only two working days left before the current legislative session is set to end on Tuesday, two budgetary bills submitted by the Executive Yuan remain stranded in the legislature.
Lawmakers yesterday continued their negotiations on the bills but still failed to reach a final agreement.
As they are accustomed to doing, lawmakers will probably burn the midnight oil during the final two days to pass the bills and a pile of other legislation awaiting attention.
One of bills in question is an additional budget bill totaling NT$80 billion, which has been proposed as a means for increasing government spending and stimulating domestic demand.
Passage of this budget would allow some new infrastructure projects that were originally planned for the 2002 fiscal year to be started during the 2001 fiscal year.
The Council of Economic Planning and Development has predicted that the additional spending will create some 38,000 local job opportunities and boost Taiwan's projected economic growth by 0.7 percentage points this year.
Opposition lawmakers, however, have threatened to slash some NT$25.5 billion from the budget.
The targeted spending includes NT$13.1 billion that has not been earmarked for specific projects; NT$5.3 billion that is intended for small construction projects in which lawmakers have a right to recommend where it should be spent; and another NT$7.1 billion "highway construction and development fund."
The other budget bill awaiting passage covers state-run enterprises.
Of major controversy is NT$3.17 billion earmarked for Taiwan Power Co as compensation for the suspension of construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
KMT lawmakers have planned to remove the NT$3.17 billion planned spending, demanding that Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) and Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Hsin-yi (林信義) pay the money instead.
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