In yet another turnabout, the KMT legislative caucus yesterday passed a resolution that would bar the government from borrowing more money to finance its NT$50-billion public-construction package.
The DPP caucus expressed deep regret at the opposition move, which it said would stall, if not devastate, review of the supplemental budget needed for the pro-ject to go ahead.
The 66-member KMT caucus concluded after an afternoon meeting that the Cabinet can find extra money for the economic stimulus measure, if it is able to do so for the NT$20-billion public service program.
The two one-year packages, referred to as job-creation legislation, are designed to raise GDP 0.38 percent and bring the unemployment rate down 0.5 percent by the end of this year.
KMT legislative leader Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) said that his caucus shares the desire to rejuvenate the economy and tame unemployment, but disagreed with pursuing this goal by increasing the public debt.
Liu insisted that the Cabinet is able to pay for the economic plan, which consists of 100 small public projects, without violating debt rules which stipulate that the government can borrow no more than 15 percent of its fiscal spending.
During his recent trip to the legislature, Director-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Liu San-chi (劉三錡) reiterated that the Cabinet cannot squeeze any more money from its budgets, noting that the deficit for this year already stands at 14.8 percent of spending.
But the opposition parties remain skeptical, saying that the Cabinet originally wanted both job-creation measures paid for with extraordinary budgets by issuing NT$70-billion in bonds -- despite the debt-ceiling.
"Bowing to opposition pres-sure, the DPP administration now says it needs only NT$23 billion," Liu Cheng-hung said.
"In light of the facts, we believe the government's finances are not as difficult as officials have said."
The public-service bill, which enables the government to hire 80,000 jobless people at a monthly wage of NT$20,000, has cleared the legislature.
The KMT resolution yesterday also proposed replacing the Council for Economic Planning and Development with the Public Works Commission as the regulatory agency for the economic measures.
Liu Cheng-hung said the proposed change is intended to make bidding for the 100 construction projects more transparent.
The PFP caucus signaled that it would support its ally's decision. PFP legislative leader Chung Shao-ho (
DPP legislative whip Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) expressed frustration, noting that proposal was the 10th opposition attempt in three months to deny the government the money needed to lift the economy.
"It seems to me the opposition parties have no intention to honor an earlier cross-party agreement and pass the supplemental budget as soon as possible," he said. "That explains why they keep altering the bill. Though small, many of the proposed projects are urgent."
Chen said the government may be forced to forgo the plan if the opposition refuses to exempt it from the debt limits, but he said the Cabinet will not give up negotiating.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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