Opposition parties today used their numerical advantage in a legislatorial committee to postpone placing the Executive Yuan’s draft of the fiscal planning act on Friday’s legislative agenda, preventing it from receiving a first reading.
The Legislative Yuan’s Procedure Committee was scheduling Friday’s and next Tuesday’s legislative sessions today, and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) proposed postponing the inclusion of the Executive Yuan’s draft amendment to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法).
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Although Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators opposed the move, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) sided with the TPP, using their numerical advantage to pass the motion by nine votes to seven.
The vote also blocked draft amendments regulating lawmakers’ travel to China for national security purposes.
TPP Legislator Liu Shu-pin (劉書彬), who made the proposal, said that not placing it on the agenda is effectively the same as sending it back to the Executive Yuan.
It would not be handled in this session but could be proposed again next time, Liu said.
The TPP discussed this move with the KMT beforehand, she said, adding that there has been no follow-up discussion about when it might be placed on the agenda.
DPP Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) today asked Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) if he would reconsider or refuse to sign amendments to the fiscal planning act proposed by opposition parties.
Cho said that he hopes that all ongoing discussions on the current fiscal planning act would be halted, making the Executive Yuan’s version the only viable option.
The Executive Yuan’s version has undergone over six consultations with local governments, making it the most likely to achieve consensus and be brought before the Legislative Yuan for discussion, Cho said.
The version passed on Nov. 14 would increase government borrowing to NT$560 billion (US$17.8 billion), which exceeds the ceiling set by the Public Debt Act (公共債務法), he said.
The Executive Yuan cannot prepare a budget based on that version, as the budget would be illegal, he added.
Next year’s general budget has already been compiled based on the new version of the fiscal planning act, and any changes now would undermine government administration, Cho said.
The Executive Yuan passed its version of the fiscal planning act on Thursday last week, which increased central government allocation to local governments to over NT$1.2 trillion, exceeding the NT$1.1683 trillion approved by the opposition in December last year.
DPP caucus chief executive Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) said that the amount in the version of the act passed on Nov. 14 surpasses last year's version by NT$264.6 billion, exceeding the government’s borrowing limit and making it difficult to implement.
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