Choi Eun-seok: 'It is a public servant's duty to take responsibility for failed policies'
Party cites Seoul home prices, exchange rate and inflation as evidence of Kim's failures
PPP targets July 23 real estate forum, warns against using it to build case for tax hikes
The People Power Party on Saturday called for the resignation of Cheong Wa Dae policy chief Kim Yong-beom, citing what it described as policy failures behind rising real estate prices and a persistently high exchange rate.
Choi Eun-seok, the PPP's floor spokesperson, said in a statement that Kim had been at the forefront of designing and pushing through both real estate and financial market policies. "If the policies you designed and pushed have failed, the duty of a public official with even a minimum of conscience is to take responsibility and resign as soon as possible," Choi said.
Choi took issue with remarks Kim made on Friday, when the policy chief announced that President Lee would hold a public forum on real estate policy and said, "The government does not believe it has all the answers."
"Citizens watching Kim's briefing must have been unable to suppress a laugh," Choi said. "Where did all that confidence go — the confidence that lectured the public about the 'three highs' being the cost of success?" He added: "The average price of an apartment in Seoul is approaching 1.6 billion won ($1.06 million), and the number of people displaced by monthly rent keeps growing. The exchange rate is stuck above 1,500 won to the dollar, and prices have soared. This is the dismal report card of 'Kim Yong-beom-style economic policy.'"
Choi also said Kim had "consistently revealed an anti-free-market economic worldview that prioritizes state intervention over the market — to a degree that makes his background as a career economic bureaucrat seem meaningless."
He went on to say that the presidential policy chief's role is to "coordinate the country's economic policies in a balanced way and make judgments based on the national interest," adding that if Kim intended to act only as "the president's economic avatar with the left-turn signal permanently on, there is no longer any reason for him to remain in the position."
The PPP also trained its fire on the government's planned real estate policy forum. President Lee is scheduled to hold a public forum on July 23 to discuss the direction of real estate policy, with supply, finance and taxation on the agenda. PPP spokesperson Jo Yong-sul said in a separate statement that day that "the current administration's real estate forum must not become a venue for tax-hike schemes, but a moment to reflect on policy failures."
Jo said President Lee had "demonized homeowners while stubbornly clinging to anti-market real estate policies, and has only increased the burden on the public by toying with tax hike options." "Even as citizens condemn the policies as going off the rails, the current administration has pressed ahead with ideologically driven real estate policy experiments. This forum must not become a platform for justifying tax increases and anti-market policies," Jo said.
hong@heraldcorp.com
