PPP slams Lee's order to review ISA, share-price protection bill as 'amateur governance'

The People Power Party on Saturday criticized President Lee Jae-myung's order to review proposed changes to the individual savings account (ISA) regime and a bill aimed at preventing share-price suppression, calling on the administration to "immediately stop the slapdash governance of announcing first and correcting only when the public pushes back."

Chief spokesperson Park Sung-hoon said in a statement that President Lee had rebuked his aides while issuing the review order, asking why the policies had moved forward without proper reporting. "When the public is outraged, he blames the policymakers; when problems surface, he says the briefings were wrong," Park said.

Park said that without fierce public resistance, the administration would have simply pushed ahead with the hastily drawn-up reform plan. "What has ultimately been exposed is the fact that neither the president, nor Cheong Wa Dae, nor the government properly vetted the policies' ramifications and side effects before announcing them," he said.

He said the administration had failed to catch the impact of reduced ISA benefits, the effect of taxing non-resident single homeowners on the jeonse and monthly rent market, and the unintended consequences of the share-price protection regime. "Only the public and the markets are left bruised by this amateur pattern of announce first, reverse later," he said.

Park added that the episode was "not simply a matter of tax reform, but the true face of a governance with three absences — no ability to craft sound policy, no competence to verify it in advance, and no courage to take responsibility for failure."

Meanwhile, President Lee on Friday ordered a full review of the ISA reform plan and the share-price suppression prevention bill, both included in the government's recently unveiled tax reform package.

At the meeting, Lee reprimanded officials over the ISA proposal, asking, "Why did you proceed without proper preparation?" and ordering a "full review."

On the share-price protection bill, Lee pressed aides on why the system had been designed in a way that failed to reflect the original intent of the reform, and instructed them to "take another look at this as well."

Democratic Party of Korea lawmakers Lee Eon-ju, Lee So-young and Lee Hun-gi welcomed the president's review order, saying they would "make improvements during the National Assembly deliberation process."