On Wednesday last week, US President Donald Trump swung the tariff sword and left the whole world crying out in pain. On Friday the Executive Yuan announced that it would allocate NT$88 billion (US$2.7 billion) to assist industrial and agricultural sectors impacted by the tariffs.
However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is making increasingly costly and exorbitant demands, suggesting that last year’s NT$528.3 billion tax revenue surplus be put to use.
It was not that long ago that the KMT was arguing for something else entirely. KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) had called for a universal cash payment of NT$10,000 to every taxpayer, while KMT caucus deputy secretary-general Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) in February said that the universal cash subsidy proposal would definitely be addressed during the current legislative session — even if it meant calling an extraordinary session or extending the current one.
However, distributing NT$10,000 to every taxpayer would be an immediate expense of NT$230 billion — nearly half of the total surplus.
If the government did this, what surplus funds would it have left to cope with Trump’s tariff storm? In hindsight, it is fortunate that the government pushed back on the KMT’s proposal.
This situation makes it clear that the KMT has no clue how to run a country — it only knows how to react.
The tariff shock has only just begun, and the KMT should share in these difficult times rather than proposing such horrible ideas.
Huang Wei-ping works in public service and has a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
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