Barely half a month has passed since the Dec. 19 presidential election, in which rival candidates vowed to reform politics. Voters knew these promises wouldn’t last long, and that politicians would soon return to business as usual. But they never knew the moment would come so soon.
The just-ended deliberation of the 2013 budget showed how low politics can fall, tainted by abuse and the misuse of legislative authority, rampant pork-barrel politics and earmarking of funds by political bigwigs.
Together, lawmakers, both ruling and opposition, managed to put in a total of 4500 earmarks to take 557 billion won ($523 million) away from essential welfare and military spending to their respective home districts. As a result, free medical treatment for poor people will sharply decline and underprivileged children will continue to have awful meals, while regional construction firms will profit from the building and repairing of non-essential roads and buildings.
These egregious theft of taxpayer’s money were made not even at the National Assembly but behind the closed doors of a hotel room. The relocation had nothing to do with their guilty conscience and had much to do with the need to leave no official records. Should voters feel comforted that their representatives had a modicum of shame at least?
Gone were the discussions about the so-called reform bills, including those on reducing the number of legislators and a 30-percent cut in annual allowances, proposed by the opposition party as part of campaign pledges. Instead, in a rare bipartisan agreement, they passed the bill on pension for ex-lawmakers, which stipulates the payment of 1.2 million won a month for anyone who served as a legislator, even if only for just a day.
This simply can’t be allowed to continue.
The time has long passed for Korea to hold the Assembly’s budget committee throughout the year to prevent a handful of legislators at the panel from controlling the entire process toward the deadline citing a lack of time. The parliament should also put the list detailed budget items and allocated spending on the Assembly’s website to help voters judge whether specific projects are needed or not, and whether appropriated amounts are proper or not.
This is what the state-run National Assembly TV should broadcast live, not the usual harangue of lawmakers and their sleeping colleagues.
Highlighting this glaring budget fiasco, nine lawmakers at the budgetary panel from both the ruling and opposition parties went on overseas travel in two groups the day after the passage of the budget bill, each to African and Central American nations, to study these countries’ ``budget-discussing systems.” One can learn from any others, but they should have found more plausible excuses. Or they might have chosen destinations to reaffirm that even poorer, less developed countries than Korea have better representatives.
Should Korean voters recall these lawmakers? Yes. Will they? No. These pork-barreling politicians are heroes in their precincts. Like voters, like representatives.