People Power Party lawmaker Park Soo-young on Wednesday criticized the government's tax reform plan as "the worst ever for crushing young people's hopes."
Park made the remarks at a press conference at the National Assembly that morning, calling on the government to "stop robbing young people of their future by cutting off the housing ladder."
"The Lee Jae Myung administration has given up on young people, and young people have given up on the Lee Jae Myung administration," Park said. "This tax reform plan seeks to strip youth of every hope — housing, marriage, childbirth and asset-building."
Park raised her voice further, saying a "'tax of hatred' that imposes punitive levies even on single-homeowners is erasing freedom of residence, and young people are bearing the brunt of cascading side effects — tax pass-throughs, the disappearance of jeonse and monthly rent options and more."
Park also raised the issue of youth employment. "A new term has even emerged — 'friendflation' — describing young people who feel they cannot afford to meet friends because of high exchange rates and high prices," she said. "Youth employment has fallen for 45 consecutive months, and the unemployment rate is the worst it has been in five years and six months, since January 2021."
She added that young people were crying out in bitter self-mockery, saying "this life is ruined" and "the present is hell, the future is escape." "The Lee Jae Myung administration's handout-style populism — treating taxpayers' money like pocket change — is making young people's futures ever bleaker," she said.
Park called for the full withdrawal of the tax reform plan. "I issue a stern warning to the Lee Jae Myung administration: listen to the desperate voices of young people and withdraw this tax-bomb reform plan that is destroying the ladder of opportunity for youth," she said.
Young people who attended the press conference expressed concern that the burden of the tax reform plan would fall on their generation.
Min Dong-hwan, co-chair of Pension Reform Youth Action, called the plan "a 'Pinocchio' tax reform that deceives 50 million citizens with lies." "President Lee Jae Myung promised not to use taxes to control the real estate market and made mortgage deregulation a campaign pledge, but he broke that promise within a year of taking office," Min said.
Cho Hyun-ho, co-chair of Labor Reform Youth Action, condemned the recent proposal to house young people in decommissioned buses. "We do not live in decommissioned buses," Cho said. "The idea that we should cannot be resolved with a simple apology." Cho added that while the ruling party leadership had called the episode a "minor incident," it was anything but. "If young people were seen as equal citizens rather than people who just need to be thrown a bare minimum of shelter, that kind of language would never have been written in the first place," Cho said. "This is not a miscalculation — it is a matter of perspective."
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