The People Power Party said, "In addition, the Democratic Party of Korea (MDP) is turning the government's budget proposal for fiscal 2024 into the MDP's budget proposal by using the tyranny of the majority of seats," suggesting a review of the original points of the budget proposals passed by the National Assembly Standing Committee.

Representative Yoon Jae-ok of the House of Representatives said that among the 11 standing committees that handled the budget bill at the House of Representatives' meeting, the Administrative Security Committee, the Agriculture and Water Committee, the Hwanno Committee, the Land and Land Committee, the Mountain and Water Committee, and the Agriculture and Water Committee. He said that six of them, including the Moon Committee, were passed unilaterally by the Democratic Party, and pointed out that "the government's budget review has deviated from the right track."

Specifically, he cited the 6.7 billion won local currency budget and the 53.2 billion won youth pass budget, which the MDP unilaterally increased, and defined them as "the low-name budget ordered by Chairman Lee Jae-myung and a representative populist budget."

He also criticized the MDP for "directly denying the government's R&D budget by cutting 923.47 trillion won for 1 projects, including the global R&D budget, which was a presidential promise, while increasing the budget by 1.513 trillion won for 161 projects, including the operating expenses of government-funded research institutes."

"The Democratic Party of Korea (MDP) is directly denying the government's right to draw up the budget stipulated in the Constitution by using its majority of seats as a weapon," Yoon said, calling it an "unconstitutional budget sham."

Rep. Song Un-seok, a member of the People Power Party's special committee on the National Assembly's preliminary elections, said, "The unilateral handling of the budget bill based on the number of seats in the National Assembly can be read as a mentality that 'I don't know about the country, I just need to win the election.'"

In particular, he pointed out that the Democratic Party of Korea (MDP) has completely cut the youth employment and work experience support program, saying, "It is like talking about the youth without understanding their grievances at all."

Rep. Kim Young-sik, vice chairman of the party's special committee on science and technology, criticized the MDP for cutting the budget for the nuclear power plant sector and increasing the budget for new and renewable energy, saying, "The MDP went to the Daedeok Complex to encourage researchers, saying that nuclear energy and technology are important, but in the end, the National Assembly slapped them in the back of the head by unilaterally cutting the budget for nuclear energy."

Chief spokesman Park Chung-ha also criticized in his commentary, saying, "Competing countries such as the United States, France, Russia, and China are scrambling to invest more than 2 trillion won in the development of small modular reactor technology, but Korea is in danger of being left behind due to the tyranny of the big opposition party."

He added, "The Moon Jae-in government is retaliating against the Yoon Suk-yeol government's efforts to correct the failure of the nuclear phase-out policy, which was decided by ideology."

Park also emphasized that "since the National Finance Act requires the approval of the Ministry of Finance to increase the budget, the budget proposal handled by the MDP alone must be reviewed from the beginning."

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Representative Yoon said, "In response to the criticism that the budget for next fiscal year did not reflect the 88.1 billion won student loan interest waiver announced by Chairman Kim Ki-hyun in June," he said, "We will collect the budgets at the standing committee stage and conduct a full-fledged review of them, and in the process, we will take special care of the youth budget."

(Photo = Yonhap News)