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 KMT's lawmakers (top to bottom), Yang Chiung-Ying (楊瓊纓), Chu Fong-Chi (朱鳳芝) and Ting Shou-Chung (丁守中) are pushing a resolution to pay oversea travel expenses for local district chiefs. |
It's long been known that KMT has deeper root in the locals. That's, maintaining better relationships with these local district chiefs -- following KMT's long history of local managements. DPP, in contrary, either pays much less attention to them, or the approaches DPP applied failed miserably.
Yesterday (3/25/2008), the 2nd business day after Ma was elected, Chinese KMT's lawmakers submitted resolutions to pay these locals.
Yang Chiung-Ying (楊瓊纓), Chu Fong-Chi (朱鳳芝) and Ting Shou-Chung (丁守中) submitted a resolution "Compensation to Chun-, Li-Zhangs' Oversea Travel expenses" (補助村里長出國考察) to add "oversea travel funds" to the compensations given to local district chiefs.
Instead of sourcing the funds from local governments like the current law (「地方民代費用支給及村里長事務費補助條例」) requires, this resolution, an amendment to the current one, requires that the additional compensation be paid for by the central government.
Since this resolution requires a huge budget, it is expected to raise suspicions, especially when the government is in grave debt and doesn't seem to have funds for this.
Yang Chiung-Ying explains:
"Broadly defined, Chun-Li Zhangs are government officials. People like military personnel, government officials, teachers and people's representatives all have compensations. We shouldn't leave Chun-Li- Zhangs behind."
But every local chief already receives 45,000 NT dollars per month (~ roughly 1,500 US dollars per month). The new resolution doubles it.
For your information, a Kapitan in Malaysia, a local district chief similar to a Chun-Li Zhang in Taiwan, receives roughly 150 US dollars a month, and that's after a recent adjustment from ~83 US dollars a month.
Yang argues,
"That's not enough. They need to travel oversea at least once every other year to relax and expand their views."
Huh? Why?
So, now, the central government is gonna pay for oversea travels for these local district chiefs ?
Ok, how much money are we talking about here?
Yang responds -- take a deeeeep breath, guys --
"I don't know. I didn't calculate it. But the resolution has to be passed in this session."
So you wanna pass a law to take money from Taiwanese pockets, but you don't even bother to calculate how much money you are talking about?
And no matter how large the amount is, "it has to be passed in this session" ???
She sounds like she will have to run for life if it isn't passed in this session.
So, hand over your money gracefully, fellow Taiwanese !
According to DPP, the resolution requires more than 5,000 million NT dollars (五十幾億, that's, more than 170 million US dollars), which is difficult for the central government to deal with. Besides, it should be local government's business, there's no reason to ask the central government to pay.
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 Yang Jen-Fu (楊仁福, top) and Lin Chien-Jung (林建榮, bottom) |
Again, when asked how much it involves, Yang Jen-Fu has no idea at all.
So, after Ma Ying-Jeou emphasized for months how urgent it is to fix Taiwan's economy, the first thing Ma and his people do right after him being elected is to pay off local district chiefs, using central government's money, no matter how much it takes and has to do it RIGHT NOW !
Ma Ying-Jeou is really "fixing" the economy for ya all, isn't he ?
Hey, hold on ... they do it legally ! They have the majority in the Legislative Yuan, they can do whatever they want, remember? This is what ya all wanted, isn't it ?
~~~ Fading into the background : What? we don't know how much it is? Who cares ! We are gonna pass it anyway ! ~~~
[Source : Blue pushes for money pit resolutions right after the election]
