The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday said it plans to hold eight public briefings from Saturday, after the Legislative Yuan concludes its ongoing reconsideration of the general budget and budget allocation measures.
Lawmakers convened yesterday to redeliberate this year’s budget, and are to meet today to discuss amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法).
The Cabinet had returned the budget and the amendments the legislature for a revote, saying that the changes would be difficult to implement.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The DPP meetings would be led by Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and his team, along with local lawmakers and industry representatives.
To inform people of how they might be affected by proposed budget cuts, the DPP is to hold a briefing in each of the six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu and Hualien counties, it said.
DPP Organization Department chairman Chang Chih-hao (張志豪) yesterday convened a coordination meeting with local party officials to finalize briefing plans, sources said.
DPP Secretary-General Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) is expected to announce the detailed schedule today after the party’s Central Standing Committee meeting.
The briefings would focus on how budget cuts would damage people’s livelihoods, with events on Saturday in Taichung, in Taoyuan on Sunday, in Taipei and Hualien County on Saturday next week, in Tainan on March 23 and the final meeting in New Taipei City on March 30, a source said.
The first three locations are home to major civil society recall efforts targeting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers.
The goal of the meetings is to help the public understand the impact of budget cuts, rather than support recall campaigns, said Chen Chia-hsing (陳嘉行), executive director of the DPP’s Taipei chapter.
However, given that more than 30 recall campaigns targeting KMT lawmakers have passed the first stage, some within the DPP worry momentum might start to decrease, Chen said.
It is a good thing that the party is to provide the public with a unified message, and these events would draw thousands of people, he added.
Speaking at the Legislative Yuan meeting yesterday, Cho said it is the government’s responsibility to explain to the public how the budget cuts would affect them.
“There is no way to achieve our expected goal,” he said about the slashed budget.
Cho said he hoped that the legislature would reconsider the budget cuts during this week’s discussions.
The cuts are more than six times and funds frozen more than nine times than the average over the past three years, with some agencies and programs already feeling the effects, he said.
Hopefully, “rational conversation” can continue, Cho said.
There is also difficulty in unfreezing budgets, he added.
Most funds would remain frozen until November or December, making them inaccessable for most of the year, he said, citing Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics data.
Regarding the legislature’s decision to cut NT$100 billion (US$3.04 billion) from Taiwan Power Co’s budget, Cho said the nation would have to take on debt and raise electricity rates as a result, which would harm people’s livelihood and make Taiwan’s industry uncompetitive.
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