Lawmakers deadlocked over budget

Lawmakers to reach a conclusion on next year's central government budget during cross-party negotiations yesterday.

The negotiations ended with a comment by legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) that the budgetary review should wait until the Executive Yuan explains its remark that a request to submit an amended spending plan lacked a legal foundation and was unconstitutional.

The negotiations were held following a request by lawmakers of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP), one day after the Cabinet submitted an explanatory note in the hope that opposition lawmakers would change their mind and resume the budgetary review.

The explanation was offered after the pan-blue-controlled Legislature voted last Tuesday in favor of a motion to shelve review of the government's annual budget.

Using numerical superiority at the legislature, pan-blue lawmakers won the vote and concluded that the legislative review would have to wait until the Cabinet submits an amended budgetary plan so that the Legislature could conduct a review of the original as well as the amended version.

PFP said that the budget, which contains a spending plan for a restructured Judicial Yuan as well as a fund for a National Human Rights Memorial Hall, which has yet to be approved, disregard the laws which stipulate that the government can only budget for existing institutions.

The opposition parties disagreed with the Cabinet's exclusion from the annual government budget of a NT$23.6 billion subsidy for national infrastructure construction and a NT$9.8 billion agricultural fund. They demanded that the Cabinet include the funds in the amended spending plan, because it would not be permitted to initiate a special budget later on.

The Cabinet has said the legislature is not permitted to request that it increase spending while reviewing the annual budget.

Cabinet Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳) said that the demand for a budgetary amendment lacked a legal foundation, since the Cabinet could find no statutory grounds for submitting an amendment in either the Constitution, the Budget Law (預算法) or the Public Debt Law (公債法).

Quoting Yu Shyi-kun, Cabinet spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said last Wednesday that the legislative request was against the Constitution and the Budget Law, since lawmakers cannot demand a budget amendment or an increased budget during their review of the annual spending plan.

At yesterday's cross-party ne-gotiations Wang said he disagreed with the Cabinet spokesman's view, because the request was not the first of its kind.

He said the Legislature had demanded an amended budget proposal from the Taiwan Power Company in 2001 during the review of a special fund for construction of the Fourth Nuclear Plant.

The Legislative Yuan has the power to reject the annual budget if necessary, Wang said.

Pan-blue have also voiced their dissatisfaction with the explanatory note presented on Monday.

"Rather than submitting an amended spending plan, the Cabinet issued an explanatory note, which is rubbish," PFP whip Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) said at a news conference yesterday morning.

Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Lo Chih-ming (羅志明) said the budget crisis offers the opportunity to carry out plans for dissolving the 223-member Legislature and change the date for the next legislative election.

"The Cabinet should seize on the opportunity the crisis offers to dissolve the pan-blue-controlled Legislature. The dissolution can be considered if the Legislature continues to veto the annual budget," Lo said at yesterday's legislative assembly.