A cross-caucus negotiation yesterday ended in stalemate after lawmakers failed to agree on how to deal with 10,421 motions filed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus to freeze and slash budgets for the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program.
“The infrastructure program is a special budgetary item. Every cent of its budget comes from government debt,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) said. “The KMT caucus tabled this many motions in the hopes that the money will be well spent.”
The KMT caucus wants to cut NT$33 billion (US$1.09 billion) for controversial items, such as rail construction projects, and projects that are at odds with the purpose of the program, he said.
The caucus is against the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) plan to bundle the budget motions to put them to vote, he said.
The DPP caucus, in a bid to save time, has tabled 100 motions regarding the program, half of which directly address the agencies that will undertake the projects in the program, which could cause the more specific language that opposition parties have submitted in their motions to be overlooked, he said.
“If this can be allowed, committee reviews can also be skipped when reviewing future general budgets,” he said.
“We will just categorize the motions by their governing agencies and put them to a vote during a plenary session. We might as well close the legislature down,” he said.
Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) voiced concerns about the KMT caucus’ motions, saying there would not be enough time to discuss all of them.
Since the KMT caucus was still submitting motions yesterday morning, the Legislative Yuan’s printing factory was not able to compile them all and print them in time for yesterday’s meeting, Su said.
The usual practice for reviewing general and special budgets is for lawmakers to just review the “sections” in motions, without addressing smaller units such as subsections and items, he said.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) agreed.
However, KMT lawmakers refused to budge, with Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) saying that it is within lawmakers’ purview to address items listed under motions when reviewing budgets, if necessary.
“We have made our decision. All 10,421 motions must be printed out without a word missing. Every motion must discussed with every word read,” Lin said.
Su later ordered that 25 books containing all the motions filed by the KMT, along with those filed by the People First Party and the New Power Party, to be printed before this morning’s negotiation session, while Ker and Lin continued to bicker over how to deal with the motions.
“The legislature’s operations should not become a joke to the public. I do not believe this is what KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) wants,” Ker told reporters after the meeting.
The KMT should engage in rational discussions rather than “pulling a prank” to paralyze the legislative procedure, he said.
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