City mayors and county commissioners complaining about the central government cutting subsidies to local governments should blame opposition lawmakers who “recklessly” slashed the central government’s fiscal budget, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokespeople said yesterday.
Since last year, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers have created political turmoil by joining forces in an attempt to expand the opposition-
controlled legislature’s power and undermine the executive branch, DPP spokeswoman Han Ying (韓瑩) said.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
“They also recklessly slashed NT$207.6 billion [US$6.94 billion] from the fiscal budget, including NT$63.6 billion, which they left to the Cabinet to find ways to cut,” she said.
Throughout the budget review, KMT and TPP lawmakers had resorted to violence, refused to hold discussions with and obstructed DPP members from attending legislative sessions, and submitted last-minute motions with few lawmakers knowing what they contained, Han said.
After ramming these motions through their third readings, even KMT and TPP lawmakers had no idea what budget items or how much they had cut, she said.
“It is the first time this has happened in Taiwan’s history — having lawmakers who did not know what they were voting on or what funds were being slashed,” she said.
It has resulted in a budget shortfall, made it difficult for government agencies to function, eliminated social welfare programs and the Cabinet implementing a 25 percent across-the-board cut in subsidies to local governments, Han said.
“Now the city mayors and county commissioners, the majority of whom are KMT members or affiliated with the blue camp, are crying foul, and accusing the central government of being unfair, bad at fiscal management or unlawfully seizing subsidy funds,” she said. “However, the root cause of all of these is the work of the KMT and the TPP in the legislature.”
During the tenures of former presidents Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) from 2009 to last year, the proposed fiscal budget was, on average, cut by 1.19 percent by lawmakers, or 1.1 percent from 2022 to last year, but for this year, the legislature slashed it by a record 6.63 percent, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) said.
“Opposition parties slashed NT$63.6 billion from the Executive Yuan’s operating funds, so it has to make up for it by reducing subsidies to local governments,” he said.
The Cabinet still has to manage ongoing programs, including a four-year NT$40 billion program to enhance walkways for pedestrian safety, a four-year NT$30 billion housing rental subsidy program, the five-year NT$48.9 billion Healthy Taiwan Cultivation Plan, and NT$11.6 billion in stimulus programs for small and medium-sized businesses, he said.
“They are all very important,” he said. “Which ones do the opposition parties want to see cut?”
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