Special activity cost, increased local currency...The 'Budget War' Is Intensifying

[Anchor]
The ruling and opposition parties are showing a clear difference in their views on special activity costs and local currency for each institution in next year's government budget review, which is worth 677 trillion won.

Amid the "trial risk" of Lee Jae-myung, chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, becoming a reality, some predict that the strong-to-strong confrontation will intensify in the remaining budget politics.

Reporter Lim Sung-jae's report.

[Reporter]
The National Assembly and the ruling and opposition parties, which began a full-fledged review of next year's budget of 677 trillion won, clashed all week at the standing committees and the subcommittee on budgeting.

At the forefront of the confrontation is the special activity cost, which the opposition party has defined as "power organization Ssamjidon," and the Democratic Party of Korea has cut all the special activity costs of investigative agencies such as the prosecution and the presidential office as announced.

Analysts say that the budget situation and the timing of Lee Jae-myung's successive first trial rulings have sparked the massive opposition's relentless exercise of the right to review.

[Park Chan-dae / Chairman of the National Assembly Steering Committee, Democratic Party of Korea (21st): An amendment was proposed to reflect additional reductions in special activity expenses that were not explained or presented. I'll tell you this.]

Instead, the local currency-related budget, which is considered the so-called "Lee Jae-myung's budget," which was not included in the government, increased by about 2 trillion won.It is expected that other budgets pushed by the Democratic Party, such as

{고교} free high school education, will be increased, and it seems that the main opposition party will have the upper hand in political leadership.

The people's power strongly protested that the opposition party's unilateral budget review is a form of retaliation aimed at representative Lee's bulletproofness.

In particular, he raised criticism, saying that while the special activity expenses of each institution are cut entirely, it is a clear behavior to increase the budget that CEO Lee is interested in.

[BAE JUN YOUNG / Deputy floor leader of People's Power (21st): It seems to be the height of double standards. Why do the ruling and opposition parties need to deal with this unilaterally? Close the standing committee and decide at the Democratic Party's general meeting.]

The plan is to return the "don't ask cut" because the administration has the right to budget under the constitution, along with a public opinion campaign that looks beyond political strife to people's livelihoods, but the limitations of the "minority ruling party" are troubling.

In particular, some observers say that the budget political situation could be crippled starting with the first trial of Lee Jae-myung's perjury teacher case, and there are concerns that it will not be easy to meet the legal deadline for the budget review, which is on the 2nd of next month.

I'm YTN's Lim Sungjae.

Photographer: Lee Sung-mo Han Sang-won
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video: Han Soo-min