Lee Jae-myung Emphasizes "People's Livelihood First," Calling Practical Livelihood Reform a Core Task

Workshop for Democratic Party Lawmakers Held on the 31st
Announcement of 22 Key Livelihood Legislative Tasks

[Asia Economy Reporters Park Jun-yi and Oh Ju-yeon] Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, said at a lawmakers' workshop held a day before the September regular session of the National Assembly, "Under the principle of putting the people first and prioritizing their livelihood, I think the Democratic Party should make practical livelihood reforms its core task."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

At the 'Democratic Party Lawmakers Workshop in Preparation for the Regular Session' held at the National Assembly on the 31st, Lee said, "The Democratic Party must truly emphasize 'people-first' above all."

He added, "Since we must also fulfill the role of the opposition party, we need to strongly counter the government's arrogance. I know that Democratic Party lawmakers have been doing their best for the people's livelihood on the ground, but the expectations of the public and party members are very high, and we need to meet those expectations, so more effort is required than now," emphasizing the point.

On the same day, Floor Leader Park Hong-geun referred to the September regular session as a "golden time to correct the governance regression caused by the Yoon Seok-yeol administration," saying, "If we fail to correct it during the regular session, the damage will be passed on to the people." Park pledged, "Due to the government's and ruling party's arrogance and arrogance, the livelihood economy has fallen into a comprehensive crisis. The 169 Democratic Party lawmakers will unite as one, demonstrate competence, and produce (livelihood legislation) results to gain public trust."

On that day, the Democratic Party selected 22 livelihood legislative tasks out of a total of 487 through collecting opinions from lawmakers.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The 22 major bills include ▲ the 'Low-Income Housing Stability Act,' which raises the income deduction limit for principal and interest repayment on jeonse loans and expands the deduction rate to 80%, ▲ the 'Childbirth and Childcare Allowance Expansion Act,' which raises the non-taxable limit for childbirth and childcare benefits for children under six to 200,000 KRW per month, ▲ the 'Introduction of Delivery Price Linkage System Act,' which mandates mandatory price adjustments after contract termination if the price index of major raw materials rises during the contract period, ▲ the 'Complete Loss Compensation Act,' which introduces loss compensation for medium-sized enterprises, small business owners, and self-employed with sales under 10 billion KRW and a rent-sharing system for special disaster areas, ▲ the 'Rice Price Normalization Act,' which mandates market isolation in case of rice overproduction, ▲ the 'Abolition of Sunset Clause on Safe Freight Rates Act,' which abolishes the sunset clause on safe freight rates for cargo trucks, and ▲ the 'Online Platform Fairness Act,' which aims to increase transparency in online platform operations and establish fair online platform e-commerce transaction order.

Floor Leader Park emphasized, "We will also restart judicial reform, local autonomy, and media reform," but stressed, "The most urgent issue is the livelihood budget."

He said, "The Yoon Seok-yeol administration announced the 2023 budget, which is 40.5 trillion KRW less than this year's total expenditure of 679.5 trillion KRW, including the supplementary budget announced the day before. Although it is packaged as sound fiscal management, if the government reduces the budget to protect the national treasury when the people are most difficult and struggling, it will only increase the burden on the people's livelihood," adding, "We will thoroughly review the reduced budget to normalize it and prepare sufficient livelihood budgets for the socially vulnerable."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.