The widespread wildfires across the country are making recovery efforts urgent. The People Power Party is advocating for the inclusion of a disaster reserve in a supplementary budget to aid in recovery and prevention activities. Kim Sang-hoon, the policy chief of the People Power Party, urged the Democratic Party to not only apologize to the public for unilaterally cutting the reserve funds in the 2025 main budget but also to actively cooperate in the additional allocation of disaster reserves.
Kim pointed out that the Democratic Party’s unilaterally enforced submission of the main budget led to a significant cut from the initial government proposal of 2.6 trillion won to 1 trillion won. He noted that of the 1.6 trillion won allocated for specific reserves, 1.3 trillion won was earmarked for free high school and five-year-old education, according to the budget regulations.
He stressed that the current government only has about 300 billion won of specific reserves available to deploy. Even if the current wildfire support is not an issue, it is important to replenish disaster reserves considering potential typhoon and flood damages in the summer.
Kim also addressed claims by the Democratic Party that there is no precedent of including reserves in a supplementary budget, calling those claims false. He referred to an instance during the Moon Jae-in administration when a supplementary budget proposed increasing the basic reserve by 1 trillion won, with the final increase being 600 billion won. Kim criticized the Democratic Party for trying to escape responsibility for the reserve cuts they pushed through in this year’s budget.