Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Cho Jung-tai/Facebook
THE LAI ADMINISTRATION has announced plans for cash handouts of 10,000 NT to the general public. The Lai administration has framed this as sharing the dividends of Taiwan’s AI boom with the general public, stating that Taiwan had reached the highest economic growth in 39 years.
If this spending amount is approved in the 2027 budget, then the distributions will take place next year. In this sense, one observes several aims by the Lai administration with calls for the cash handout. For one, cash handouts have proven popular with the public in the past, such as those often advanced by the KMT. But the Lai administration is also hoping to add to public pressure to pass the 2027 budget, which the KMT has delayed on for months.
For its part, the KMT seems to know that Lai is taking a page out of its playbook. The KMT has thus criticized Lai for a “double standard” in that the KMT previously proposed a 10,000 NT cash handout in May, but this was then criticized by the Executive Yuan, which stressed fiscal discipline. Now, the KMT has called for the doubling of the cash handout to 20,000 NT.
This is similar to last year, when the legislature also pushed for cash handouts of 10,000 NT. Though the Lai administration resisted the idea, it later reversed course to try and take credit for it.
In particular, with the KMT continuing to seek drastic cuts to funding for sections of government, as it also did in past years, it may be that the public does not understand when social services are cut. Instead, the public may simply prefer cash handouts. Indeed, it is expected that cultural funding will continue to take a hit in the budget, even as the KMT has downplayed the cuts and suggested that its actions are, in fact, generous to the Lai administration. In the meantime, the KMT has also continued to hit out at the funding allocated to DPP politicians, including Lai and Premier Cho Jung-tai. Recent actions by the KMT in the legislature include cutting 10 million NT from Lai’s annual discretionary budget and freezing the remaining 20 million NT, as well as freezing Cho’s salary from September through December 2026.
The Executive Yuan and Legislative Yuan have also continued to be at loggerheads over child saving legislation, with Cho refusing to countersign. This is the sixth time that Cho has refused to countersign legislation since December 2025, a move that appropriated a veto power to the Executive Yuan that did not previously exist, and was likely to push the KMT on the issue of their freeze of the Constitutional Court. The bill would require the government to deposit 60,000 NT per year into a savings account for eligible children under 8, and 30,000 NT for children between 7 and 17, who would also receive 30,000 NT in another account annually.
But the legislation allows for “corporate sponsorship” funds, which has been accused by the Lai administration of being murky, seeing as this could allow wealthy families to accrue more money. The Lai administration declining to countersign the bill, citing the constitutional principle of proportionality, was on this basis. Budgeting contention between the DPP and KMT continues, then.