Leader of the People Power Party, Choo Kyung-ho, urged an immediate apology and retraction regarding the Democratic Party of Korea’s unilateral passage of next year’s budget bill, which only reflected reductions without any increases, in the Budget and Settlement Committee.
At a press conference held at the National Assembly today (1st), Representative Choo criticized the move as an “unprecedented reckless act” directed by the “Democratic Party’s father” Lee Jae-myung. He stated, “Indiscriminately cutting budgets for disaster preparedness, public welfare, and security is using budget review rights as a tool of political strife to threaten the government and ruling party; it’s a budget outrage and parliamentary violence.”
He continued, “There are concerns that the unilateral budget cuts by the opposition will increase the burden on public welfare and create security gaps, making timely responses to disasters more difficult.” He strongly urged the Democratic Party to apologize to the public, the government, and the ruling party and to immediately retract the reduced budget proposal.
Choo added, “If the Democratic Party intends to force the acceptance of the opposition’s unreasonable budget increase demands by using the power of their majority to push through the budget committee, they should abandon such tactics. Without the Democratic Party’s prior apology and retraction of the reduced budget proposal, we will not engage in any further negotiations on the budget.”
He also warned, “If issues arise in public welfare, security, diplomacy, or disaster response due to this budget cut, the Democratic Party, which forcibly passed the budget proposal, should take full responsibility.”
Choo concluded by saying, “Even though there may be significant challenges if the budget proposal passes on December 2nd as the Democratic Party’s plan, the People Power Party and the government will make every effort, through close cooperation, to minimize anticipated side effects while thoroughly preparing for the execution of next year’s budget.”
[Photo source: Yonhap News]