President William Lai (賴清德) should show more empathy, as he is the one causing an impasse in the legislative review of next year’s budget, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said yesterday, calling on Lai to have “three soft hearts” to resolve the deadlock.
The Executive Yuan not preparing next year’s budget for military and police pay in accordance with the law has triggered dissatisfaction from the opposition parties, which hold a majority in the legislature, leading to the budget being unable to be assigned to legislative committees for further review, Lo said.
Lai on Thursday said that if the Legislative Yuan cannot review the central government’s budget for the 2026 fiscal year on time, “what qualifications do the opposition parties have to talk about constitutional governance?”
Photo: Taipei Times
“We hope the legislature can support and assist the country’s progress by promptly reviewing the central government’s budget and the special defense budget,” Lai said.
Lo said the difficulty in reviewing the general budget was that the budget the executiv branch submitted to the Legislative Yuan contains illegal omissions.
Items that should have been included by law were not, resulting in the Legislative Yuan being unable to review it, he said.
In particular, the Legislative Yuan passed the third reading of amendments to the Pay Act of the Armed Forces (軍人待遇條例) and the Police Personnel Management Act (警察人員人事條例), but the Executive Yuan refused to allocate the budget for their implementation according to the law, he said.
“After the Legislative Yuan passed the pension cut suspension, the Executive Yuan intends to use the illegally revived Constitutional Court to seize the legislature’s power to amend the law,” he added.
Lo said that to resolve the deadlock, Lai must have “three soft hearts.”
“The first soft heart is to properly care for the military,” he said.
“The Lai administration has allocated the highest-ever defense budget of NT$950 billion [US$30 billion], and plans to spend NT$1.25 trillion on military equipment, but has anyone considered why the current-to-authorized personnel ratio in the military is so low? It is because we cannot provide sufficient dignity and benefits to those in service,” Lo said.
The KMT stands firm in defending national security and the welfare of military personnel, and has proposed a salary increase for soldiers, he said, adding that if the military salary increase budget is allocated, the Legislative Yuan would immediately review the general budget.
“The second soft heart is to properly care for the police and firefighters,” he said.
In the event of major public safety incidents or fires, it is the police and firefighters who are on the front lines, he said, adding that the legislature would have started reviewing the budget if the executive branch had fully allocated the budget for the retirement benefits of police and firefighters.
“The third soft heart is to protect the retirement benefits of public servants,” Lo said.
Civil servants support the nation’s development, and teachers nurture the country’s talents, he said.
“However, due to the pension reforms promoted by the Democratic Progressive Party, the pensions for public servants have been slashed to the bone,” he said. “They are merely humbly requesting a halt to the cuts, but Lai refuses to comply.”
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