From Childcare to Long-term Elderly Care, How Does Tsai Ing-wen Dare to Deceive Both the Old and the Young?

 From Childcare to Long-term Elderly Care, How Does Tsai Ing-wen Dare to Deceive Both the Old and the Young?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

December 16, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

 Tsai Ing-wen says that she wants to "take good care of Taiwan’s kids", and her approach is "from the age of 0 to 6 years, the state will raise the kids together with you": From the current NT$65,000 a year invested in kids, it will be hiked to NT$100,000 four years later. In fact, the government team led by Tsai Ing-wen is also in control of the resources of the state, but the planks it has introduced are full of loopholes. For instance, who is going to foot the bill for expenditures of increased childcare in collaboration of reducing the nursery aide-kid ratio? Where does the skyrocketing manpower needed for childcare come from?

Besides the childcare policy, the long-term elderly care policy, equally hoisting the shingle of "publicly-run", also has a similar predicament. Three months ago, Tsai Ing-wen still shouted, in a raised voice, "Long-term Elderly Care 3.0", and now where is it? "Long-term Elderly Care 2.0", because of unstable funding sources and insufficient coverage, "long-term elderly care pariahs" are found everywhere; many potholes are waiting to be repaired. To upgrade to "Long-term Elderly Care 3.0" has practical difficulties. For this reason, Tsai Ing-wen immediately flip-flopped by introducing “Upgraded Long-term Elderly Care 2.0” instead. Subsequently, Tsai Ing-wen even raised the budget for the "Upgraded Long-term Elderly Care 2.0” to NT$60 billion, as if doubling down on the blackmail for vote could get the ballots. Ironically, no sooner had Tsai Ing-wen drawn a NT$60 billion big pie for long-term elderly care than news began to circulate that 250,000 long-term elderly care people probably would never enjoy the benefits of deductibles for long-term elderly care.

"From the age of 0 to 6 years, the state will raise the kids together with you" plus “Upgraded Long-term Elderly Care 2.0”, Tsai Ing-wen has painted a colorful and heart-warming picture of care for all ages. However, speaking bluntly, the two are both repackaging of policies and doubling down on a spending spree, yet lacking wholesome complementarities. Thus, despite the criss-crossing of checks for "raising the kids and taking care of the old" with unclear sources of funding, the Executive Yuan could not catch up, the localities backlashed, leading to misgivings on the part of industry operators; the public could barely understand the whole picture.

The electoral axis of Tsai Ing-wen manufactured a sense of losing one’s country amid "defending Taiwan and countering China"; other planks are presented as a formality, principally spreading cash to win over people's hearts. She believes that with a sense of losing one’s country, spreading around cash could stabilize the vote. Complete control of government, complete arrogance, and completely despising the voters, this is precisely a true description of the DPP!

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