It is known that President Yoon Seok-yeol ordered the staff and cabinet in connection with the New Year’s budget negotiations, saying, “The principle set by the government must not back down and be carried through to the end.” President Yoon is also known to be repulsed by the practice of dividing the budget for regional districts while the ruling and opposition parties increase or decrease the government budget behind closed doors. As a result, the government and the ruling party are said to have established a position to reflect the government’s position without being bound by the negotiation deadline (23rd) proposed by National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo on the 21st.
A senior official in the presidential office said on the 22nd, “President Yoon thinks that there is a big problem with the practice of appropriately dividing the budget for constituencies while the ruling and opposition parties are negotiating behind closed doors on the budget submitted by the government to the National Assembly.” I ordered to negotiate until the last minute according to the law and principles without being tied down.” In the process of the National Assembly reducing and increasing the budget submitted by the government, influential lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties took issue with the practice of collecting local district budgets. The official also said, “The president has a belief that the government’s philosophy and color must be clearly reflected in the government budget, which has the right to organize the budget.” pointed out
It is known that President Yoon’s position was conveyed to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategy and Finance Chu Kyung-ho, who is conducting final negotiations on the budget bill with the floor leaders of the ruling and opposition parties. In this regard, a high-ranking government official said, “The government is negotiating the budget bill with the feeling of wringing a towel.”
This kind of atmosphere is far from the atmosphere in the political world that the budget negotiations will be concluded by the 23rd, which Chairman Kim proposed as the deadline for negotiations. It is known that Chairman Kim contacted Chief of Staff Kim Dae-ki and urged him to conclude negotiations. The government also harbors suspicions that Chairman Kim, a former member of the Democratic Party, “isn’t he doing his own politics rather than playing the role of the National Assembly speaker mediating between the ruling and opposition parties?”
The remaining issue related to the current budget bill is the final adjustment of the details while reducing or increasing the 639 trillion won budget submitted by the government. In the case of reduction, the total amount came within the negotiable range, but the government and opposition parties are confronting over budget cuts for the police department of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security and the personnel information management team of the Ministry of Justice.
In the negotiations on the increase, the biggest issue is the local currency budget led by Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung. The Democratic Party is in a position to increase the 700 billion won, which was not a penny in the government’s original plan. Although the scale was reduced to 500 billion won in the course of negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties, the government sees it as a budget that does not match the philosophy of the Yoon Seok-yeol government.
An official from the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said, “The 10% discount on local currency is actually a populist policy that distributes cash, and it does not match the policy stance of the Yoon Seok-yeol government.” There are also side effects that benefit more from this.” The government is said to be sticking to the position that the budget for the police department and the personnel information management team, which amount to only 500 million won in total, should be reflected as the original plan without any conditions.
The government believes that the possibility of the Democratic Party passing its own revised budget is also low. This is because, according to the Constitution (Article 57), it is impossible to increase the budget without the government’s consent, so most of the opposition lawmakers who are in the process of increasing or reducing the budget have to give up most of their constituency budgets. If the budget bill does not pass the National Assembly within the year, a quasi-budget unprecedented in the history of the constitution will be drawn up.
Reporter Jwa Dong-wook/Do Byung-wook [email protected]