Park Hong-geun "Democratic Party Nears Completion of Budget Bill... Unable to Reflect Agreement on Higher Education Account"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Naju-seok] Park Hong-geun, the floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, said on the 13th, "We have been accelerating the work of creating a reduction-focused revised bill for the Democratic Party, and it is almost at the completion stage." Park warned that when the Democratic Party processes the budget bill, it inevitably faces issues such as the formation of a supplementary budget after the budget bill is processed and the impossibility of reflecting bipartisan agreement on the special account for higher lifelong education.

After meeting with Kim Jin-pyo, Speaker of the National Assembly, and Joo Ho-young, floor leader of the People Power Party, Park explained, "We still could not narrow our positions, so we decided not to meet in the afternoon or evening and to conduct internal reviews separately."

He said, "The Speaker also mentioned that the government’s proposal was prepared in the summer, and considering the economic situation and government policy changes since then, revising the government proposal is inevitable. If the Democratic Party submits a revised bill due to lack of agreement, it will inevitably have to prepare a supplementary budget again. The Deputy Prime Minister for Economy and the government cannot just leave this unattended, and they repeatedly said that some form of compromise would be good," he introduced.

Park explained that if the Democratic Party processes the revised bill alone, the special account for higher lifelong education, which was agreed upon by both parties, could fail. He said, "I understand that the Education Committee agreed that both parties would spend 1.5 trillion won each on higher education, but whether it is the Democratic Party’s revised bill or the government’s original proposal, government approval for the increase is inevitable, and this has not been reflected. The Speaker and the government said that the supplementary budget is inevitable and that we should not create a situation where the bipartisan agreement on higher education support is not reflected," he said.