Ruling, opposition parties split over Lee's budget address

The ruling and opposition parties offered sharply divergent assessments of President Lee Jae Myung's budget address Tuesday, as lawmakers prepared to review next year's record-breaking spending plan of about 821 trillion won ($612 billion). The Democratic Party of Korea called the proposal a "growth-spreading budget" and signaled it would push for a swift review, while the People Power Party sharpened its attacks, demanding that the president renounce what it called populism.

Democratic Party floor leader Han Byung-do said at a floor strategy meeting Tuesday that President Lee had used the address to personally explain the key details and rationale behind next year's budget proposal, presenting what Han described as a vision for a "great transformation toward shared growth for all."

Han said the PPP had staged a picket protest before the address, heckled the president during his speech and had some of its lawmakers walk out midway through. "I express deep regret over the irresponsible conduct displayed at a forum meant to discuss next year's budget and the lives of the people," Han said. "It stood in stark contrast to the president, who stopped in front of the protesting PPP lawmakers and bowed his head in greeting."

Han also said the PPP had "poured out strained attacks — calling it future plunder and a debt party — the moment the speech ended," adding that the party had dismissed improvements in fiscal ratios as an illusion and branded investment for future growth as populism.

On the Future Response Fund — a fund of up to 162 trillion won to be built from surplus and additional tax revenues — Han said it was "inconsistent to distort it as a debt party." He said that precisely because semiconductor prosperity would not last forever, as the PPP itself had acknowledged, the fund was meant to cultivate the next engine of growth and prepare for potential revenue shortfalls. "If we use all available funds to pay down debt, how are we supposed to respond to future investment needs and an economic downturn?" Han said.

The PPP fired back, saying the president had "declared war on South Korea's future by dropping a debt bomb." Floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik told reporters Monday that the Future Response Fund was "a budget of irresponsible, extremist populism," adding that the National Assembly Budget Office had found that additional tax revenues — the fund's largest source of financing — would dry up after 2029. "The Future Response Fund is nothing more than a two-to-three-year debt party," Jeong said.

Jeong said that while President Lee had called in his address for an end to inequality and polarization, "if you had to name a single cause of inequality and polarization in South Korea today, it would be President Lee himself." Jeong said the president should have apologized for policy failures in real estate, shares and other areas.

Jeong said the president had "declared he would push ahead with extreme expansionary fiscal policy without any reflection or apology," adding that the PPP could not agree to such an irresponsible budget. "We will scrutinize this populist budget like a skewer, in accordance with the overriding principle of restoring fiscal soundness," he said.