An expected showdown in the legislature yesterday between the pan-green and pan-blue camps over a proposed statute to relax spending limits was postponed until next week after the two camps reached an agreement to discuss the statute in the legislature's sitting next Friday.
The statute would allow the increased spending that would accompany the government's plan to carry out 10 major infrastructure projects that it hopes would boost the economy.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) originally wanted to hold a vote on the statute during yesterday's sitting.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
The pan-blue camp agreed to discuss the statute during next Friday's sitting after Lee Chun-yee (
Meanwhile, the pan-blue camp advanced another version of the statute.
Liao Feng-te (
"We want this statute and the special budget plan to be regulated by the Public Debt Law. We also want to exclude ongoing projects from this budget plan," Liao said.
"Further, we want to shorten the effective period of the statute from five years to three. We would ask that the government identify all the projects it wants to work on within the three-year period and allow the legislature to review the projects one by one," Liao said.
Liao said that passing the statute would require further negotiations, and that any articles that the two camps could not agree on could be put to a vote.
To try to win the legislature's support for the statute and the NT$500 billion budget plan for the 10 major infrastructure projects, Premier Yu Shyi-kun visited Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
Yu said that if the government was forced to prepare a budget for the projects following the regular method, it would be restricted by a debt ceiling stipulated in the Public Debt Law.
He also said that he hoped the opposition camp would agree to support the statute.
"The statute was delivered to the legislature for review almost six months ago, and after six inter-party negotiations we can see that there are not many differences of opinion between the two camps," Yu said.
"People can express their opinions during the negotiations over the budget itself.
"We hope the pan-blue camp can first help the statute pass.Otherwise the pan-blue camp will be boycotting the statute solely for procedural reasons," Yu said.
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