By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
Lawmakers are breaking the law as major parties failed to meet the deadline set by authorities regarding the passage of a budget bill for next year.
The law stipulates that National Assemblymen must approve a budget plan for the new year at least 30 days before the commencement of a fiscal year.
According to the law, Tuesday was the last day for legislators of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) and opposition parties, including the largest opposition Democratic Party (DP), to agree on the bill.
It has been business as usual for legislators, who haven't agreed on a budget plan on time since 2002.
Earlier, national assemblymen reached an agreement on the opening of the 18th legislature a month after the legal deadline.
Leaders of the GNP and the DP continued to lock horns Tuesday, blaming each other and showing few signs of approaching a bipartisan agreement on the budget bill.
DP legislators demanded that the government overhaul the bill, as it was made based on the assumption that the economy will grow by 4 percentage points next year.
Think tanks have lowered the projected growth rate next year, as the economy showed few signs of recovery.
They projected the Korean economy will grow next year by somewhere between 2.7 and 3.4 percent.
The governing GNP insisted that it was unfeasible for the government to work on the bill again as time had run out.
GNP Chairman Park Hee-tae stressed in a radio address that now is the time for the parties to step up efforts to approve the bill so as to help the economy gain momentum with the stimulus plan and a social safety net for working-class families.
``Unless the National Assembly agrees on the budget plan for next year, the government cannot move forward to implement the policies,'' he said.
DP floor leader Won Hye-young, however, claimed that the government should draft a new budget bill in response to the newly projected growth rate.
Won also argued that the current bill would be of little help to low-income families and the plan to cut taxes would only benefit high-income earners.
Amid DP hardliners showing few signs of stepping back from their position, Rep. Kang Bong-kyun called on them to cooperate with GNP lawmakers to wrap up the bill with adequate change.
Kang argued in an interview on a radio program that the passage of the budget bill shouldn't be further delayed, although it needed to be modified slightly in a manner helping resolve the issues facing the economy.
The DP lawmaker, a former minister of finance and economy under the Roh Moo-hyun administration, attributed the stalemate on the approval of the budget plan to stalwart DP hardliners.
``Inside the DP, there is a group of people who believe that campaigning against the government would help the largest opposition boost its support rate. But this is not correct,'' he said.
A recent public opinion survey found that public support for the DP stood at 8 percent, a decrease of 7 percentage points from a month ago.