Budget Marred by Political Strife... Ruling Party: "Lee Jae-myung's Directed Budget" vs Opposition: "Protecting Livelihood Budget"

Opposition's Standalone Approvals in Preliminary Reviews by Standing Committees
1.889 Billion Won Cut from Nuclear Ecosystem Budget on 20th

The Democratic Party of Korea, leveraging its majority seats, has moved to cut the budget for key national tasks of President Yoon Suk-yeol, including the restoration of the nuclear ecosystem. As the gap between the ruling and opposition parties widens during the National Assembly budget review process, a final negotiation between the leadership of the People Power Party and the Democratic Party seems inevitable for next year’s budget.

On the 21st, Yoon Jae-ok, floor leader of the People Power Party, criticized at the floor strategy meeting held at the National Assembly, saying, "The Democratic Party is abusing its majority seats and distorting the 2024 government budget into the Democratic Party’s budget."

Referring to Article 57 of the Constitution, which states that "the budget amount cannot be increased or new budget items established without government consent," Yoon said, "Nevertheless, the Democratic Party unilaterally increased the budget by establishing new items not included in the government budget, such as 705.3 billion won for local currency in the Administrative Safety Committee and 292.3 billion won for the Youth Pass in the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee." He criticized, "Both items are discretionary budgets ordered by Representative Lee Jae-myung and are typical populist budgets."

He also pointed out that the Democratic Party unilaterally cut the nuclear power-related budget at the Industry, Trade, Small and Medium Enterprises Committee the day before. In the committee, the Democratic Party completely cut 188.9 billion won in the nuclear power sector budget, including the Innovative Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and nuclear power-related R&D budgets. On the other hand, they requested an increase of 161.9 billion won for renewable energy budgets promoted during the Moon Jae-in administration. Additionally, he pointed out the budget review situation in the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee and the Democratic Party’s cuts to youth employment career and work experience support budgets in the Environment and Labor Committee.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party argues that they are protecting the livelihood budget. Hong Ik-pyo, floor leader of the Democratic Party, said at the floor strategy meeting that day, "In a situation where the government and ruling party should be taking the lead to overcome the immediate livelihood and economic crisis, they are cutting budgets for livelihoods, and the opposition party is correcting this reversed situation repeatedly." He emphasized, "If the government and ruling party understand even a little of the public’s burning frustration, they should abandon ultra-rich tax cuts and austerity fiscal policies and approach the budget review with bold adjustments and decisions on livelihood budgets."

As the gap between the ruling and opposition parties widens from the preliminary review stage in standing committees, a last-minute compromise between the leadership of both parties over the budget is becoming inevitable. Lee Sang-min, senior research fellow at the National Fiscal Research Institute, explained, "All items preliminarily reviewed in the standing committees are re-examined in the Budget and Accounts Committee, but reduction opinions cannot be changed there." He added, "To adjust reduction opinions, the Budget and Accounts Committee must request re-discussion from the standing committee, but it is not easy for the standing committee to accept this." He further explained, "If re-discussion does not occur in the standing committee, the budget must be created in the form of a revised budget at the plenary session, which then becomes a negotiation area between the floor leaders and Budget and Accounts Committee party coordinators." In summary, contentious budget items that are fully or significantly cut in the standing committees can only be restored through political compromise between the party leadership.

Friction continues even in the Budget Adjustment Subcommittee, which practically reviews the budget. During the subcommittee meeting held until late the previous night, there was difficulty over the review of research and development (R&D) related budgets. As budgets proceeded by project, the ruling party criticized, "If we debate every single item, it seems we won’t finish even after three months." Ultimately, the R&D budget was passed on through an agreement between the party coordinators of the Budget and Accounts Committee. The Broadcasting and Communications Commission budget was also a contentious issue. Regarding the review of the Broadcasting and Communications Commission budget, the ruling party opposed, saying, "What is the point of unilaterally processing something that was not compressed in the standing committee?" They raised the issue that the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee budget did not pass the full standing committee meeting. Eventually, the review of the Broadcasting and Communications Commission budget also passed on to negotiations between party coordinators.

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