by Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo Credit: Fu Kun-chi/Facebook
THE KMT AND TPP successfully passed the third reading of legislation that would enact substantial cuts to the government budget earlier today. This took place on the heels of a marathon 20-hour session that led to the budget being passed before the Legislative Yuan adjourns for the Lunar New Year.
The KMT and TPP advanced more than 3,000 proposals to cut various aspects of the government budget. Many of the rationales that were advanced led to criticism over their lack of any real logic. For example, one claim was that the Ministry of Digital Affairs had not been successful enough in fighting fraud and so its budget should be cut as a punishment, though a lack of budget to combat fraud could worsen such problems. Other rationales were widely mocked, such as claiming that an ad warning about cool overnight temperatures that referenced popular anime Attack on Titan was targeting the KMT because it was colored primarily in blue and white.
6.6% percent was cut by the legislature from the Executive Yuan’s budget, which is the largest set of cuts in history. Yet what is key to note is not the percentage of overall cuts, but what programs were cut.
The cuts are clearly aimed at hollowing out entire sections of government, with the Control Yuan and Ministry of Foreign Affairs having half of their expenses frozen. Substantial cuts were made to the budgets for the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education, public broadcaster PTS, and state-run power utility Taipower. Academia Sinica and other academic institutions will also take a hit.
Defense overall will see a 3% reduction, never mind calls by the US for Taiwan to increase its military spending, and advertising for government departments has been blocked. Significant government programs such as the domestic submarine program will have their budget cut by half as well. It is to be seen whether this move by the KMT leads to repercussions against Taiwan from the new Trump administration.
In order to avoid special expenses being used to make up for the shortfall, special expenses have been blocked for a wide range of ministries and sections of government including the Mainland Affairs Council, Council of Indigenous Affairs, National Communications Commission, Ministry of Digital Affairs, Ministry of the Interior, and Council of Indigenous Affairs. That being said, the KMT and TPP walked back previous proposals that entailed reducing the budget of the Mainland Affairs Council, Ministry of Digital Affairs, and Ministry of Agriculture to 1 NT.
Photo credit: KMT/Facebook
More broadly, in the process of legislation, the KMT and TPP adjusted the scale of cuts in order to keep the public in the dark about what would actually be cut, as well as in order to obfuscate news reporting on the matter by putting forward numerous versions of proposed budgetary cuts. The KMT and TPP only released budgets that were to be voted on shortly before the vote, in order to keep the DPP in the dark.
The government has warned that there will be substantial cuts to services aimed at helping elderly care, as well as assisting young people with housing, prominent demographic issues that loom large in every election. Likewise, critical services that the public relies on, such as ordering train tickets online, may not be possible with the budgetary cuts.
Generally speaking, there is no demand from the public for austerity, and the Taiwanese public generally enjoys the semi-welfare state that currently exists in Taiwan. As such, if there is a visible decline in services the public currently enjoys, it is hard to think that the move will not lead to blowback against the KMT. Similarly, as the DPP has been able to appeal to the public on the basis that it has strengthened US-Taiwan relations under its tenure, if the KMT’s cuts to the defense budget worsen this relationship under the Trump administration, the KMT could further see backlash.
More broadly, the KMT and TPP have claimed that future budgetary needs can be addressed when current funds run out. This is a move by the KMT and the TPP to expand legislative power over government spending, utilizing their current narrow majority in the legislature.
In this sense, the KMT’s budgetary moves can be situated in the spectrum of its actions in the last year aimed at stripping powers away from the executive and judicial branches of government and instead arrogating them to the legislature–including efforts at freezing the Constitutional Court’s ability to make judgments.
To this extent, in cutting a wide-ranging set of government ministries, the KMT is likely aiming to punish sections of government it does not control, and seeking to send a signal that such ministries should fall in line. Though the KMT may intend this as a power move, such a course of action could also backfire. Entire sections of the public affected by the budget cuts, such as cultural workers, have already begun to react strongly against the KMT’s actions. Such groups will be further incensed by that before passing budgetary cuts, the KMT passed measures aimed at financially benefiting its traditional base by way of pork barrel politics.
In the meantime, it is still unclear what course of action the DPP will take to counteract the KMT. The DPP may commit to calls to recall KMT legislators, in spite of the fact that barriers to holding recalls were recently raised by the KMT. Or the DPP may seek to punish the KMT in the next round of elections. Similarly, it is still unclear what course of action Taiwanese civil society will take going forward, with the KMT’s efforts to freeze the Constitutional Court likely to lead to a constitutional crisis in the near future.