Not Even the President Is Empowered to Squander Public Funds for Electioneering through Issuing New Policies

 Not Even the President Is Empowered to Squander Public Funds for Electioneering through Issuing New Policies

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

November 13, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

President Tsai Ing-wen has recently been stumping everywhere, issuing check upon check in huge amounts for construction so as to help DPP candidates improve their electoral prospects. For instance, when stumping in Yilan County, one day ahead of her arrival, it was circulated that she would issue a check agreeing to an "elevated railway project" which would cost some NT$30 billion, eliciting a crossing-of-swords between Blue and Green. In Kaohsiung, moreover, she pledged to extend the city subway Red Line to Lingyuan District, which would cost NT$45.5 billion. During election campaigns, without prudent assessments, it is extremely irresponsible for the President to issue, at will, checks in the amounts of tens of billions of NT dollars. Besides creating difficulties in follow-up implementation, it would also cause the country’s finances to become increasingly unbalanced.

When the DPP was in the opposition, it repeatedly criticized the KMT for "electioneering through issuing policies" as a vicious approach, which would leave debts to our children and grandchildren. Who knew, after Tsai Ing-wen came to office, she has exacerbated the problem all the more. Besides the President issuing checks for construction everywhere, Premier Lai Ching-te even utilized his position as Premier to squander money everywhere, as well. Before the end of September, when stumping all around Taiwan, the checks for construction he issued exceeded NT$700 billion, which was “magnanimity” beyond imagination.

For its waywardness and contradictions, the DPP has not even an iota of self-recognition, and has exacerbated its ways of using public funds for its own interests in the local elections this time, employing state resources to help the electoral prospects of DPP candidates. Observing President Tsai’s governance for the short two and a half years in the past, endlessly and quickly piling up debts in order to engage in “not forward-looking” construction; now, for the local elections this time, her government has issued checks in huge amounts every day. An incompetent government has left the public disappointed; biased and profligate rulers, however, would be jettisoned by the people.

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