Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday urged politicians to refrain from allocating budgets on policies that would “only be exciting for a short time” to prevent Taiwan from facing a debt crisis similar to Greece’s.
“One thing we should do for the next generation of Taiwanese is to manage finances well by spending our limited resources on things that are absolutely necessary, and refrain from spending on things that are not constructive and only exciting for a short time,” Tsai said on the sidelines of a campaign event for Hakka supporters in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和).
She said that if elected, she would make taking care of the nation’s finances a priority, to prevent further worsening of financial conditions in the country, while bringing down the national debt — now more than NT$25 trillion (US$798.4 billion).
At the event, Tsai announced that she planned to create a “romantic provincial highway No. 3.”
She said that Provincial Highway No. 3 passes many Hakka communities and she hopes that the communities along the road could work together to promote their specialty industries and create the next generation of Hakka culture and industries.
“We will create next-generation industries with Hakka culture, so that the next generation of Hakka people are very proud of who they are,” Tsai said.
Asked to comment on the result of a Taiwan Brain Trust poll released on Friday showing that as many as 61 percent of the respondents were opposed to Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsu-chu’s (洪秀柱) proposal of “one China, same interpretation,” Tsai said the result shows that the public cherish freedom and democracy, and that cross-strait policies cannot be made recklessly.
“Those in power should be cautious and stable, a reckless attitude toward cross-strait relations is absolutely not something a person in power should have,” she said.
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