Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Eric Chu/Facebook
THE KMT HAS continued to lean into the idea of cash handouts to the citizenry. The idea has now shifted to be framed as an emergency relief measure for the Trump administration’s tariffs, which will have a significant impact on Taiwan and the world.
Yet the idea of cash handouts comes much earlier. The KMT began to introduce the idea as an alternative as to what to do with Taiwan’s record-high tax revenue in 2024, with 3.73 trillion NT in taxes collected. This is a larger windfall than expected, in that there were 497.2 billion NT more in taxes than budgeted for by the government.
That there was such a substantial windfall in the government, which could be used to bolster programs ranging from social services to defense spending, ran counter to the KMT’s claim that Taiwan was in dire need of budgetary cuts. In particular, the KMT called for cuts to 34% of operational government spending, as part of the largest cuts in Taiwanese history.
The KMT would be returning to the time-worn idea of handing cash to the general public in the hopes that this would convince the public to vote for them. KMT governments have proposed this time again as a means of winning votes. This is perhaps unsurprising for a party that relied on vote-buying during the authoritarian era as a means of maintaining power. Cash hand-outs have especially focused in the past on targeting the older voters who are the KMT’s traditional voter base.
Indeed, with many uncertainties regarding the Trump administration’s tariffs, it is unclear what industries will be most impacted. Some measures have already been rolled out to deal with the tariffs, such as extending the tax deadline to the end of June. At the same time, the situation proves very different than the one that Taiwan faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the government distributed vouchers that could be used instead of cash as a means of stimulus to drive up consumption.
Photo credit: Eric Chu/Facebook
In the course of the KMT’s contention over the budget, the Lai administration emphasized that it would use the extra funds for social services such as childcare, tuition subsidies, and efforts to fight cancer. Lai also stated that such funds will be used to bolster industry, in maintaining a stable electricity supply for AI technology development, as well as to cultivate talent. More generally, Lai also stated that Taiwan would continue to increase the amount of GDP it spends on defense to 3%, accomplishing this through a special budget.
The Lai administration is expected to continue to adhere to this position. Ironically, however, with the threat of Trump’s tariff shocks looming on the horizon, the KMT eventually began to call for cut or unfrozen funds from the budget to be used to alleviate industry. At present, the KMT and the TPP have criticized the Lai administration for insufficient spending in industrial relief efforts. This, too, goes counter to the KMT and TPP’s original claims that such budgetary cuts were necessary.
Even so, the KMT continues to call for cuts in subsidies to Taipower, which were used to keep electricity prices in Taiwan artificially low. The KMT very likely hopes that the public will blame the Lai administration for rising electricity prices, which would benefit it electorally.
The KMT’s position on hand-outs proves somewhat contorted, then, in that the KMT simply has swapped rationales as to why there should be cash hand-outs depending on what is currently a hot political issue facing Taiwan. The KMT’s main aim is primarily to try and increase prices in a way that leads to blame being directed at the DPP, while distributing cash hand-outs in a way that it could take credit for in the course of electioneering. As should be obvious, then, the KMT’s concerns are hardly for the benefit of Taiwanese society–merely for the sake of gaining electoral power.