Fundamental Solution Needed to End Annual Budgetary Brawl

The National Assembly's crippled operation ― even over the following year's government budget ― has long ceased to make much news here.

This time, however, rival political parties might ``really'' fail to approve the budget for 2010 by year-end, paralyzing the government except for its most basic functions, for the first time in the nation's constitutional history. And at the center of what might prove to be the unprecedented administrative deadlock is President Lee Myung-bak and his pet project.

On Thursday, President Lee told his aides to prepare for holding an emergency Cabinet meeting on Jan. 1 to approve and implement the ``provisional budget'' in case the budget bill fails to pass the Assembly by Dec. 31. ``In a worst-case scenario, we'll have to withhold government employees' salaries,'' Lee said. This was the chief executive's indirect ultimatum to the negotiators of the governing Grand National Party not to budge on the biggest bone of contention, namely the four-river restoration project.

At issue is the main opposition Democratic Party's demand to slash a government subsidy of some 80 billion won ($68 million) to the Korea Water Resources Corp. to cover the interest cost for the state company's bond issuance to finance the construction of 16 dams. DP officials cite that the dams are too high and dredging of the riverbeds is too deep to deny the suspicions that building them is a plan to eventually create a cross-country canal.

Cheong Wa Dae and GNP say they are ready to ``declare'' the river works are not a precursor of the cross-country waterway, as speaker Kim Hyung-o proposed. The governing camp, however, is urged to first explain why the designs of reservoirs and dredging have exceeded the criteria, which even the prime minister's office once acknowledged to be tantamount to a canal.

Otherwise, few Koreans will believe in the so-called joint declaration by the ruling and opposition parties, having already watched the governing camp nullify even a special law (on the administrative capital) jointly enacted by the political parties only a few years ago.

President Lee and GNP leadership should instead pay heed to the proposal of the reform-minded, centrist group of lawmakers within the governing party, who are calling for reaching compromises on the number and size of the dams.

That said, the DP for its part need to seriously consider whether it should be blocking the passage of the entire budget of 291.8 trillion won because of the dispute over a tiny fraction of it. The DP leadership ought to show more flexibility on the rest of the budget on condition that the governing camp is ready to negotiate on the river works issue.

Many Koreans might not know it but the legal deadline for budget passage is Dec. 2, which has been met only once over the past decade or so. This raises a serious question on parliamentary operation. As we have repeatedly said, the political leaders should have a serious discussion to turn the Special Budget Settlement Committee into a permanent committee to both prevent the minority parties from taking the annual budget as a hostage to push through their agenda, and ensure more substantive deliberation on the effective use of taxpayers' money.

This year, too, the debate on more important issues concerning public livelihood have been buried under the wrangle over the river project issue. As always, the biggest victims are the voters.