[Inside Chodong] Passage of the Budget Bill Where Irregular Practices Have Become the Norm

The amount reduced during the National Assembly's budget review for next year's budget is 4.7154 trillion KRW. How much of this was officially cut through the National Assembly's Special Committee on Budget and Accounts (Budget Committee) review? The answer is 487.3 billion KRW. According to an analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Budget Committee held nine subcommittee meetings, reviewed 661 projects, and modified 244 of them. Only 10.3% of the total reduced budget confirmed through the National Assembly's budget review went through the Budget Committee's review. Then, how was the remaining 89.7% of the budget cuts processed? There is no official record anywhere.

The review of budget increases is even more serious. Of the 4.4822 trillion KRW increased in the National Assembly for next year's budget, there is no official record left. The 89.7% of the reduced budget and 100% of the increased budget were all reviewed by a small subcommittee composed only of the ruling and opposition party Budget Committee secretaries or a 2+2 negotiation body including the floor leaders of both parties.

What does this number game mean? The government submitted a 656 trillion KRW budget proposal for next year to the National Assembly last September, and the National Assembly evaluated the necessity of this budget and went through the process of increasing or decreasing it. However, there is no official record of the final decision-making process. It is not that records of contentious projects between the ruling and opposition parties were deliberately omitted during negotiations. The budget was processed without any basis explaining why the budget for most projects increased or decreased.

This loophole is tolerated because the budget processing deadline is tight, and there is a practical consideration to allow behind-the-scenes give-and-take negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties. It is considered better than failing to process the budget within the year and falling into a provisional budget (a temporary budget similar to the previous year).

As a result, even immediately after the ruling and opposition parties dramatically agreed on the budget, neither the National Assembly nor the government could know the scale of next year's budget. At the time of the budget agreement announcement, Song Eon-seok, the People Power Party Budget Committee secretary, explained, "We will increase the budget for individual projects, but if not all can be increased, some may be reduced," adding, "The final numbers will come out after the last adjustments." This means they plan to set the expenditure scale by initially including the budgets for projects planned to be increased.

Then one question remains: based on what criteria was the budget increased? Various rumors circulated within the National Assembly that limits would be set by leadership budgets or regional budgets, but no one disclosed the specific decision-making method. Because of this, only a very small number of people can participate in this budget decision process involving trillions of won.

Jang Hye-young, a Justice Party lawmaker, spoke as a discussant ahead of the budget processing, criticizing, "The public cannot know why or how certain budgets increase or decrease and must only hear the conclusions decided by a few politicians," adding, "Such hasty budget agreements made behind closed doors are nothing but an oligarchic agreement among a few politicians and cannot be considered a consensus of the people."

The reason this budget method repeats every year is due to significant institutional flaws. The problem of the Budget Committee subcommittee ending with just one budget review due to a lack of processing time can be addressed by extending the budget review period or operating multiple subcommittees. However, the more fundamental issue lies in the customary acceptance of the subcommittee composition. Serious efforts are required to break this vicious cycle of loopholes that repeats every year.