The People Power Party (PPP) has labeled the government's 26.2 trillion won ($18.8 billion) supplementary budget proposal as "a fraud against the public based on statistical distortion," demanding a full review of the plan.
PPP Floor Leader Song Eon-seok argued that the government planned excessive spending based on overly optimistic economic forecasts detached from reality. He called for a shift to a "precision pinpoint supplementary budget" that eliminates non-essential projects and focuses on people's livelihoods.
At the Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly on Monday, Song said, "The 2% growth rate forecast, the 1,380 won exchange rate, and the $64 international oil price that served as the basis for this year's main budget have already collapsed."
"Rising global energy prices are simultaneously pressuring inflation and economic slowdown, raising concerns about entering stagflation — a phenomenon where prices continue to rise amid recession. In some scenarios, a tax revenue shortfall is also unavoidable," he added.
Song also criticized the government for ignoring these realities, inflating economic forecasts, and using them as the basis for an excessive supplementary budget. "Despite this situation, the government optimistically projects that tax revenue will increase by year-end and has submitted a supplementary budget of no less than 26.2 trillion won," he said.
"It is completely contradictory — the government uses war as a pretext to expand spending through a supplementary budget while excluding all concerns about the economic downturn and tax revenue shortfalls caused by war, and instead raises the growth rate forecast," he noted.
Song went further, stating, "The claim that the national debt-to-GDP ratio has declined based on a false GDP growth forecast, and the government's assertion that fiscal soundness has improved as a result, are nothing but statistical distortion and a fraud against the public."
He also pointed out that certain line items in the supplementary budget strayed far from the character of a "wartime supplementary budget." "There are projects that were scaled back during last year's main budget review due to concerns about their appropriateness, but have now been inflated by more than 20 times in this supplementary budget," Song said.
"The small-scale solar power program, which had been flagged by the Board of Audit and Inspection, has many problems, yet 25 billion won has reappeared this time under the label of 'apartment balcony solar power project,'" he added.
"This is a supplementary budget that destroys livelihoods, showing no sense of crisis about the economic situation and no responsibility for fiscal management. This is not a crisis response — it is a vote-buying supplementary budget for elections, a budget of fiscal spoils-sharing, and a budget using war as a pretext," Song said.
"What is needed now is a precise pinpoint support package that reflects the downward revision of the growth rate in revenue estimates and restructures unnecessary projects," he argued.