Ruling and opposition party lawmakers on Wednesday agreed to invite Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) to report to the legislature about its request to hold a revote on the recently passed central government budget plan and measures raising funding allocations to local governments.
However, after about an hour and a half of interparty negotiations, no agreement was reached on when Cho should report to the legislature, which is to decide on whether to hold a revote as requested by the Cabinet at the end of the month.
Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who called Wednesday’s meeting, said that the issues would be left to the legislature for further deliberation as soon as today.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The revote was requested by the Cabinet in a bid to overturn the opposition-led legislature’s budget cuts for this fiscal year and the revisions to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法).
The Democratic Progressive Party administration has said the NT$207.6 billion (US$6.32 billion) cuts to the central government’s budget, which originally earmarked NT$3.1 trillion, would disrupt government operations.
The cuts, about NT$183.1 billion, are nine times higher than the average cuts over the past three years, they said.
The Cabinet has also requested a revote on the amendments to the budget allocation act, saying that the measures gave local governments more funding without assigning them additional public spending responsibilities.
The amendments, which cleared the legislature on Dec. 20, include measures requiring the central government to allocate 40 percent of the nation’s total tax or other revenue, while retaining 60 percent — reversing the 25-75 percent ratio that has been in place since 1999.
As per Article 3-2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution, the executive body may — with the president’s approval — request a revote on legislation lawmakers have passed, if it considers a law “difficult to implement.”
Over the past nine months, the Cabinet has requested three other ultimately futile revotes to overturn legislation passed by the current legislature, where the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party hold a majority.
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