Yoon: "We Must Abolish Ridiculous Political Subsidies" (Update)

Yoon Chairs National Fiscal Strategy Meeting
Likely to Drastically Cut Government Subsidies for Civic Groups and Labor Unions Criticized for Populism

President Yoon Suk-yeol stated on the 28th that "absurd political subsidies must be eliminated." The term 'political subsidies' is interpreted as subsidies provided to labor unions and civic groups without thorough government audits in order to secure votes.

At the '2023 National Fiscal Strategy Meeting' held that day, President Yoon emphasized, "Economic subsidies should be preserved, while social subsidies need to be streamlined and rationalized," according to a written briefing by Lee Do-woon, spokesperson for the Presidential Office.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

At the Cabinet meeting on the 13th, President Yoon instructed a full review of the indiscriminately increased subsidy budget and to reflect the results in next year's budget, stating, "The people's tax money has become prey for political populism, and national debt has accumulated to 400 trillion won under the previous administration alone," in relation to audits of labor union accounts and investigations into the use of civic group subsidies.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor has been conducting audits of labor union accounts until recently and announced a policy to exclude tax credit benefits if labor unions fail to disclose their accounts.

Regarding civic group subsidies, the Presidential Office announced that a comprehensive audit of government subsidies to private organizations conducted earlier this month uncovered 1,865 cases of fraud and corruption in projects worth 1.1 trillion won. The amount of misused funds alone was reported to be 31.4 billion won.

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