Key Presidential Agenda Items Face Budget Hold-Up Amid 'Closed-Door Review' Criticism

The National Assembly's Special Committee on Budget and Accounts has put a hold on a large portion of President Yoon Suk-yeol's key policy agenda budgets. The National Assembly's Budget Subcommittee began its full-fledged review of the government's budget proposal for the next year on November 17th. The ruling and opposition parties have expressed differing views, particularly regarding budget proposals related to President Yoon's core pledges, resulting in the deferral of a significant number of agenda items, highlighting the sharp conflict between the parties in the budget review process.

Regarding the National Growth Fund budget, the Democratic Party of Korea has clearly opposed it, citing concerns about increased national debt and insufficient project preparation. On the other hand, the People Power Party is insisting on passing the budget as originally proposed by the government. This strong confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties over key project budgets is expected to cause considerable difficulties throughout the budget review process.

The 170.3 billion won budget for basic income for farmers and fishermen and the 70.5 billion won budget for establishing a national agricultural Artificial Intelligence (AI) conversion platform have also been put on hold due to sharp differences in opinion between the ruling and opposition parties. As these budgets, which aim to revitalize the rural economy and strengthen agricultural competitiveness, become politicized, it is expected that the project's progress will inevitably be disrupted.

Controversy is also brewing over the national university development project (totaling 873.55 billion won), which is related to the promise of "creating 10 Seoul National Universities." Members of the People Power Party have expressed opposition, arguing that the project could create fairness issues with private universities. Critical views on concentrated investment in national universities are emerging as another point of contention in the budget review process.

The local currency budget has already emerged as a major point of contention since the budget review stage of the Public Administration and Security Committee. The government has allocated 1.15 trillion won to revitalize the local economy, but the People Power Party is demanding an 850 billion won reduction, pointing to the excessive budget size. The debate over the appropriateness of the local currency budget has become a key issue in the budget political landscape.

The special activity expense budgets for powerful institutions such as the prosecution, the police, etc., are also points of sharp conflict between the ruling and opposition parties. As transparency concerns regarding the usage details of special activity expenses have been consistently raised, a fierce battle between the ruling and opposition parties is expected during the budget review process.

With a large number of budgets related to major national tasks being put on hold, criticism is being raised in some quarters that the budget review process is turning into a 'closed-door review.' There are calls for ensuring the transparency and fairness of budget reviews and for sufficiently gathering public opinion.

In the future, the Special Committee on Budget and Accounts plans to conduct additional discussions between the ruling and opposition parties, focusing on the deferred budget proposals. Attention is focused on whether the ruling and opposition parties can reach an agreement within the budget review deadline and finalize the budget for the next year.