Han Byeong-do, acting leader and floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, warned Wednesday that if the People Power Party fails to submit its list of standing committee members to the National Assembly by noon Thursday, he would request a plenary session that same day and elect the chairs of all 18 standing committees under his party's leadership. "We can no longer leave the National Assembly in a state of paralysis," he said. He also criticized the opposition, saying, "The People Power Party's attitude is that if it cannot take the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, it is fine for the National Assembly to come to a halt." The opposition party holding legislation hostage is a problem, but isn't it the ruling party — which seeks to monopolize power by ignoring the convention that the second-largest party in parliament takes the chairmanship of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee for checks and balances — that is the true cause of the parliamentary deadlock?
Arguments have emerged that excess tax revenue from the semiconductor boom should be distributed as national dividends, or that the corporate tax rate should be raised altogether. At a forum held Wednesday by the pro-government bloc, Oh Jun-ho, head of the Basic Income Policy Institute, said that if 100 trillion won per year, including excess tax revenue, were invested and reinvested, each person could be paid 620,000 won per month 30 years later. Park Sang-in, a professor at Seoul National University, also argued, "We must create a top corporate tax bracket to tax companies that generate enormous profits." If companies spend the money they earn on dividing it up rather than on future investment, can our economy have a future?
