Taiwan’s blue opposition parties slash media promotion budget, then government restores it for next year

Taiwan’s Kuomintang legislative caucus is accusing the Executive Yuan of restoring almost the entire central government media publicity budget after lawmakers cut it by half.

The legislature approved this year’s central government budget on Aug. 14 after Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party lawmakers joined forces. It set media policy and government publicity spending at NT$13.8 billion, cutting NT$6.84 billion, or 50 percent.

Kuomintang caucus secretary-general Hsu Yu-chen said the Executive Yuan’s proposed central government budget for the following year still allocates nearly NT$13.5 billion to the same area. She described the approach as “cut it, then budget it again; budget it, then spend it,” arguing that the administration had ignored the legislature’s review.

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Cut it, then budget it again; budget it, then spend it.

Hsu said the previous budget had initially included more than NT$13.7945 billion in media publicity spending, nearly 90 percent above the NT$7.2447 billion legal budget for the year before. She argued that the legislature had already sent a clear message that government promotion should be restrained and that taxpayers’ money should not fund efforts to polish the administration’s image.

The proposed allocations include NT$2.45776 billion for the Ministry of the Interior, NT$1.38236 billion for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NT$1.26434 billion for the Ministry of Agriculture and NT$1.11074 billion for the Ministry of Transportation. Together, those four agencies account for more than NT$6 billion. The National Police Agency and its subordinate bodies alone are allocated NT$1.94237 billion, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters receives NT$1.37108 billion.

Hsu said the Kuomintang caucus would demand explanations of the necessity, purpose and effectiveness of each ministry’s publicity spending during the review of the next budget. She said disaster prevention, epidemic prevention, anti-fraud and public-safety campaigns should not be affected, but criticized vague, repetitive or self-promotional advertising, especially as Taiwan approaches another election cycle.

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If the Executive Yuan thinks it does not matter how much the Legislative Yuan cuts, because it can simply budget the money back the following year, then it might as well issue its own checks, approve its own reimbursements and make itself happy. Why have the legislature review the budget at all?