Lawmakers yesterday rejected the Executive Yuan’s motions to reconsider the general budget and amendments to a law governing revenue allocations in a vote split along party lines.
In a 61-to-51 vote, the opposition-dominated legislature overrode the motions to reconsider the general budget and amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法).
In January, the Legislative Yuan voted to slash government spending by 6.6 percent, a historically deep cut, sparking a fierce clash between the opposition-controlled body and President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The government had warned that the budget cuts would jeopardize essential programs ranging from national defense to the energy grid and agriculture.
Yesterday’s vote entered the budget into effect and sends the amendments to Lai’s desk.
All 52 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers, independent lawmakers Chen Chao-ming (陳超明) and May Chin (高金素梅), who reliably vote with the KMT, and seven of the Taiwan People’s Party’s (TPP) eight legislators-at-large voted against the motions.
Former TPP legislator-at-large Wu Chun-cheng (吳春城) resigned from his post last month after becoming embroiled in an ongoing anti-corruption probe. Wu’s replacement, Liu Shu-pin (劉書彬), a professor of political science at Soochow University, was not yet sworn in and could not vote.
All 51 Democratic Progressive Party legislators voted for the motions.
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on Tuesday told a plenary session that the legislature even compelled the Executive Yuan to take the initiative in slashing NT$63.6 billion (US$1.93 billion) from the budget without telling officials which programs should be cut.
The move likely contravened the constitutional division of powers, he said.
Article 49 of the Budget Act (預算法) stipulates that budget proposals must be “determined by the accounts of the agency, function and the fund,” Cho said.
He said the cuts and the funding suspensions would cripple government agencies’ ability to perform their functions, adding that the NT$100 billion cuts to Taiwan Power Co subsidies jeopardize the economy.
The proposed changes to the revenues and expenditures law would overturn the central government’s financial relationship with local governments, which infringes on the executive branch’s authority to allocate funds as stipulated by Article 147 of the Constitution, he said.
Under Article 3 of the Constitution, the Executive Yuan may with the president’s approval request that the legislature reconsider a bill, requiring lawmakers to vote on the matter again within 15 days of the motion’s receipt.
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