People Power Party on government-ruling party plan to provide 2 trillion won for firefighting: “A diversion from Choo Mi-ae’s outrageous remarks ... Future Fund is Lee administration’s petty cash”

[Financial News] The People Power Party strongly criticized the government and ruling party on the 8th for considering a budget allocation of 2 trillion won using the Future Fund to ease local governments’ firefighting costs, calling it “a diversionary ploy to cover up Gyeonggi Gov. Choo Mi-ae’s outrageous remarks.”
The party, government and presidential office held a Senior Party-Government Council meeting that day and discussed providing around 2 trillion won from the central government to local governments for urgent, essential firefighting investments. Lim Gwang-hyun, chief of staff at the Presidential Office, said, “We will work closely with the National Assembly on ways to use the Future Fund, the tobacco consumption tax and the local education tax to secure urgent funding for firefighting.”
The People Power Party agreed that firefighting budgets need support, but strongly opposed using the Future Fund as the source of that funding.
Bae Jun-young, the opposition secretary of the National Assembly’s Finance, Economy and Planning Committee, said in a statement that day, “Providing budget support for firefighters employed by the national government is an obvious duty, but proposing to fund it through the Future Fund, which relies on surplus tax revenue, is an attempt to get by with a patchwork fix.” The National Assembly Budget Office has warned that surplus tax revenue after 2029 is uncertain, making the use of the fund inappropriate, he said.
Bae added, “This case has made clear that the Future Fund is Lee Jae Myung’s government’s ‘permanent supplementary budget,’ ‘fake contingency reserve’ and ‘quasi-general account’—petty cash for trying to solve everything on the spot.” He urged that “63 trillion won in general-account funding should be distributed to local administration and education as stipulated by law.”
Yoo Sang-bum, the opposition secretary of the Special Committee on Budget and Accounts, also weighed in, calling it “nothing but a patchwork fix with flashy packaging—a shallow ploy to evade criticism of Gov. Choo Mi-ae’s outrageous remarks and the Future Fund.” Choo, the Gyeonggi governor, drew intense controversy last month when she called the firefighting budget “a troublesome fiscal drain” during a parliamentary audit.
Yoo said, “The fruitless debate over whether local or central governments should pay will not increase frontline firefighters’ salaries by a single won.” He stressed, “Rather than settling for a rushed, cosmetic measure, the government and ruling party should first discuss the urgently needed 500,000-won monthly increase in the hazard-duty allowance.”
Meanwhile, the National Assembly’s Special Committee on Budget and Accounts will begin its full review of next year’s government budget proposal, ministry by ministry, on the 9th. The People Power Party has branded the government’s 162 trillion won Future Fund a “local extinction fund” and is calling for it to be cut in its entirety, setting the stage for a fierce budget battle between the ruling and opposition parties.


[email protected] Park Ji-hyun Reporter