Lawmaker reveals internal documents at press conference Thursday

People Power Party lawmaker Park Soo-young holds a press conference at the National Assembly's media center Thursday to release internal documents on what she called hasty, unilateral legislation behind the future response fund. [Yonhap]
People Power Party lawmaker Park Soo-young holds a press conference at the National Assembly's media center Thursday to release internal documents on what she called hasty, unilateral legislation behind the future response fund. [Yonhap]

People Power Party lawmaker Park Soo-young urged the government to scrap its plan to establish a 162 trillion won ($122 billion) future response fund, saying the Ministry of Planning and Budget ignored all 10 amendment and deletion requests submitted by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Park held a press conference at the National Assembly's media center Thursday, saying she had obtained the Finance Ministry's official review opinion submitted to the Planning and Budget Ministry, as well as an appeal posted by a civil servant on the Finance Ministry's internal message board. "Transparently disclose the process by which all 10 official requests from the Finance Ministry were rejected and how that decision was made," she said.

According to Park, the Finance Ministry submitted its review opinion on Aug. 27 at the Planning and Budget Ministry's request, covering a proposed bill to establish and operate the future response fund as well as an amendment to the National Fiscal Act. The opinion called for the deletion of seven provisions from the future response fund bill and revisions to three provisions of the fiscal act amendment, but none of those requests were reflected in the final legislation.

"Not a single word of the demands from the Finance Ministry — headed by the deputy prime minister for economic affairs — was accepted by the Ministry of Planning and Budget, which is led by a political appointee," Park said. "The Planning and Budget Ministry defied the Finance Ministry, which houses the deputy prime minister for economic affairs."

The Finance Ministry's objections centered on provisions governing the management of surplus funds within the future response fund. The Planning and Budget Ministry had drafted the bill to allow the fund to directly deposit surplus funds into or receive surplus funds from other funds and accounts, bypassing the Public Fund Management Fund — and the Finance Ministry demanded those provisions be deleted.

"This fundamentally undermines the fiscal management framework centered on the Public Fund Management Fund, which has integrated the surplus funds of individual funds," Park said. "All seven deletion requests from the Finance Ministry were ignored by the Planning and Budget Ministry."

Park also said opposition to the future response fund had emerged from within the Finance Ministry itself, citing a post titled "Please speak up for genuine future preparedness" that appeared on the ministry's internal message board on Aug. 28.

The author wrote that the future response fund "is no more than a stopgap measure that ignores the basic principles of fiscal management and shifts the burden onto future generations, despite the stated rationale." The post added: "Paying down government bonds and stabilizing an uncertain pension system — that is genuine future preparedness. A fund that starts by asking how to spend the money is not a future response fund; it is a fund for future destruction."

"Not a single person in the Lee Jae Myung administration listened to the desperate pleas of these civil servants," Park said. "What exactly is the reason for creating this 'future destruction fund' that dumps every burden onto future generations? Is surplus tax revenue the ruling party's political slush fund?"

She directed her remarks at President Lee Jae Myung, urging him to "fully withdraw the future response fund that is destroying the future of our youth," and added, "That is the bare minimum of responsibility owed to future generations."


bigroot@heraldcorp.com