The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday defended amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said would necessitate an overhaul of the 2025 general budget.
The amendments, if promulgated into law, would allocate 60 percent of available funding to local governments rather than 25 percent, which would result in an annual reduction to central government spending power of NT$375.3 billion (US$11.48 billion), the Directorate-General of Budgeting, Accounting, and Statistics (DGBAS) said.
At a news conference yesterday, KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Szu-ming (林思銘) rejected claims made by government ministers that the revisions, which cleared the legislature on Friday following brawls between lawmakers, would harm central government spending on defense, social welfare and other major programs.
Photo: CNA
Lin said that the reallocation of funding would instead reward fiscally responsible local governments and encourage them to promote economic development and create jobs, rather than relying on central government handouts.
“When President William Lai (賴清德) was mayor of Tainan, he called for amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures,” Lin said, suggesting that the DPP also sought greater funds for local governments when it previously was in opposition.
“Basically, what [for them] was right yesterday is wrong today,” Lin said. “They changed places and changed their minds.”
DGBAS Minister Chen Shu-tzu (陳淑姿) said the changes would cause “procedural chaos” in relation to the 2025 general budget, which has already been hotly contested by lawmakers in the past few months.
The central government would lose 9 percent of its total revenue if the law goes into effect, Chen said.
That would necessitate massive reductions in spending, including cuts for defense that would be equivalent to a 28 percent reduction, Chen added.
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