Last week saw a legislative proposal sponsored by the pan-blue camp aimed at reinstating the 18 percent preferential interest rate on savings for retired civil servants, military personnel and teachers.
The special rate was axed last year by the Cabinet, which issued an administrative order to abolish it as the pan-blue-dominated legislature was unlikely to approve such a law.
The revival of the issue and the timing of the proposal just a few days before the Taipei and Kao-hsiung municipal elections is a blatant attempt by the pan-blue alliance to secure the votes of those who were affected by the decision to scrap the scheme, many of whom are sympathetic to the pan-blue cause.
The special interest rate was just another example of the antiquated system of preferential treatment that existed under the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) party-state mechanism that dominated the country for decades, where people who were loyal to the party were rewarded with lavish benefits.
It is probably safe to say that nowhere else in the world do civil servants and other government employees enjoy such a high rate of interest on their savings, especially when the national interest rate hovers between a measly 1 percent and 2 percent.
Civil servants, military personnel and teachers do well enough already. Salaries and benefits for these jobs are good compared with other professions and even now these occupations do not pay any income tax.
In a modern democratic society, no particular group should receive special treatment from the state at the expense of others.
That the pan-blues are using such a proposal to win votes before the election is understandable, but it is their choice of weapon that should be called into question. The proposal demonstrates that all the talk about reform is insincere and that KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (
The lack of will has been obvious throughout the controversy that has raged over the presidential "state affairs fund" and the special allowances for other top officials. Not once has a pan-blue politician stepped forward and called for the entire fund system to be abolished.
This is because the opposition's efforts at exposing government "corruption" are a sham and are being prosecuted with the sole aim of returning them to power. They have nothing to do with exposing genuine corruption, waste of taxpayer money or reforming an out-of-date system.
Concerned only with regaining control of the state coffers, the pan-blues seem to have forgotten that their proposal could have the opposite effect on people who will not benefit from the reinstatement of the special rate.
The KMT and the People First Party want the electorate to believe that they can return the country to an imaginary "martial law utopia," where the economy thrived, corruption was swept under the carpet and the party faithful were well rewarded.
But those days are gone, and things like the special interest rate and slush funds for politicians should have been consigned to the dustbin of history as Taiwan's democratization process developed.
The government made the correct decision when it abolished the special interest rate with its executive order. Allowing the pan-blue camp to reverse the little progress that the government has made since the KMT was removed from power and turning the clock back to the days when KMT officials and their cohorts could enrich themselves at the state's expense would be a giant step backward for the nation.
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