Measures missing or scaled down; opposition shelves economic bills
Policies of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration are showing signs of fading, apparently under pressure from the main opposition party which led the impeachments of the president and then prime minister who acted for president.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport reported its New Year plans to acting President Choi Sang-mok on Monday. The plans did not deal with some major policies the ministry has pushed to deregulate the real estate market and lessen financial burdens on the public.
They were policies to scrap a system to collect excess reconstruction profits from residents whose houses are reconstructed and a scheme to raise the assessed real estate value for property tax purposes and revise two leasing acts that have been criticized for their biased regulations.
The Ministry of Education's New Year plans, unveiled last Friday, made no mention of when it would execute its policy to integrate daycare and early childhood education programs.
The same is true of the current government's energy policy focused on scrapping the nuclear phase-out pursued by the previous Moon Jae-in administration
Apparently walking on eggshells around the Democratic Party, which has opposed Yoon's energy policy, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is said to have amended a draft of the basic plan on power supply and demand to reduce the number of new nuclear reactors to be constructed from four to three and expand renewable energy such as solar instead. The draft was presented to the National Assembly.
The plan, which sets the course of the government's mid- and long-term energy policy, is established every two years. It should have been finalized by the end of last year after the Assembly's review. But the Democratic Party kept raising issues with the part of the plan to build new nuclear power plants.
Scaling back nuclear energy goes counter to the current of major economies, which are working hard to foster their nuclear power industry to meet increasing power demand in the era of artificial intelligence and the internet. The export of nuclear power plants is in the limelight as a new source of economic growth for Korea.
The opposition party is also neglecting economic bills it agreed with the ruling party to push through and suspended discussions on tax reduction bills.
The bills were drawn up to strengthen the global competitiveness of strategically important industries including semiconductors and ease the tax burden on small business owners who have a hard time making a living. Early in the year, ruling and opposition parties shared the view that they need to be processed as soon as possible, but now, no one knows when the processing will begin.
This is largely because the Democratic Party changed its position suddenly to concentrate on issues related to Yoon's martial law declaration and his impeachment. Some critics suspect the party intends to use the economic and livelihood bills as election pledges for its leader Lee Jae-myung if he runs for president again.
Yoon's four major reforms -- pension, labor, education and medical reforms -- and measures to raise the nation's super-low fertility rate have all practically stopped.
Both ruling and opposition parties should accept acting President Choi's appeal for their cooperation in running state affairs. A consultative body involving them and the government needs to be activated quickly.
It is imperative to maintain the consistency of policies essential to national development and the livelihood of people. It is not right for bureaucrats to give up or scale back policies voluntarily even if the government has not changed.
The Democratic Party should ditch its obsession with populism and controversial policies of the previous administration which were blamed for bringing harmful consequences, and think sincerely about the future of the country.
Even though rival parties are fighting politically, they should process at least economic and public livelihood bills quickly for the sake of the nation and its people.