People Power Party (PPP) members on the National Assembly's Special Committee on Budget and Accounts strongly criticized the government's 26 trillion won ($18.6 billion) supplementary budget bill as an "election-driven money-splashing budget."
Rep. Park Hyung-soo, the PPP's chief secretary on the committee, and fellow members held a press conference at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, on Monday. "The diagnosis was high oil prices, but the prescription was a fake medicine called 'election cash handouts,'" Park said.
Park noted that the government had presented the supplementary budget as a "pinpoint budget" focused on responding to high oil prices, stabilizing livelihoods, minimizing industrial damage and securing supply chains. "Despite the grave fiscal reality of national debt exceeding 50% of GDP and a managed fiscal deficit reaching 107.6 trillion won, the PPP effectively gave 'conditional consent' to this supplementary budget," he said.
"However, when the lid was opened, the premises we had assumed were not upheld," Park said. "We were thoroughly deceived."
Park pointed out that direct support for subsistence-level small business operators — including cargo truck drivers, delivery drivers, taxi drivers and food truck operators who need to fuel up daily to survive — was "completely ignored." "What filled that space was 4.8252 trillion won in election cash handouts, distributed in amounts ranging from 100,000 to 600,000 won based on income and regional criteria that have no causal relationship whatsoever with high oil price damage," he said.
He also noted that oil price reductions, the primary reason for the supplementary budget, accounted for only 4.2 trillion won allocated as contingency reserves. "In contrast, the budget includes 400 billion won for renewable energy and 200 billion won for research and development, which cannot produce results in the short term, as well as 200 billion won for administrative areas such as non-tax delinquency management teams unrelated to high oil prices, and 300 billion won for culture and arts," Park said.
The PPP also flagged issues with other items, including:
△ 25 billion won for household mini solar panels
△ 155 billion won for the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' "Startup for All Project"
△ 32 billion won for artists' livelihood stabilization funds
△ 50 billion won for K-Content funds
The party announced it would push to increase funding for "7 Key Projects for People's Survival," including:
△ Expanding the current 15% fuel tax cut to 30%
△ 439.8 billion won in fuel subsidies of 600,000 won per person for cargo truck, taxi and delivery workers
△ 300 billion won in fuel subsidies of 600,000 won per person for subsistence-level cargo truck operators
△ 135.8 billion won for half-price delivery and packaging container purchases for self-employed business owners
△ 151.6 billion won for a 50% K-PASS discount (limited to six months)
△ 300 billion won in interest rate subsidies for special housing loans for young people in their 20s and 30s targeting 200,000 households