Ruling party calls supplementary budget 'welcome rain' as opposition slams Lee's spending hint

The ruling and opposition parties traded barbs Saturday after President Lee Jae Myung hinted at a supplementary budget, with the opposition calling it a cash handout scheme and the ruling party firing back that "timely rain is always welcome."

Earlier, Lee made the remarks at a strategy meeting on fostering future security innovation companies, saying he was not sure whether a supplementary budget would be drawn up but that graphics processing units would be needed on an increasingly large scale.

Park Sung-hoon, chief spokesperson of the People Power Party, said in a statement that Lee had "started stoking the fire for a 'cash-spraying supplementary budget' dressed up as AI," adding that the president was trying to "consume even AI as yet another pretext for a supplementary budget."

Park went on to criticize the move as "a shallow scheme to scatter taxpayers' money to escape a political crisis as approval ratings plummet," calling it "a shameful trick to buy public sentiment by throwing money around."

Democratic Party of Korea chief spokesperson Kang Jun-hyeon pushed back in a statement of his own, saying it was actually Yoon Suk Yeol of the People Power Party who had "squandered taxpayers' money as if it were pocket change."

Kang argued that what the People Power Party and the Yoon administration had handed over to the current government was nothing but "off-the-books debt in the 90 trillion won ($58.2 billion) range concealed through reckless fiscal management and window-dressing accounting, along with bills for various funds that had been drained dry."

He also said the People Power Party was "pretending to worry about state finances by invoking taxpayers' money while actually stealing lawmakers' salaries — which are themselves taxpayer funds," and urged the party to "actively engage in forming the National Assembly right away."

On Lee's hint at a supplementary budget, Kang said no decision had yet been made on whether one would be drawn up, but added that "nothing would be more welcome than timely rain."